


Every You, Every Me

by Starshot, TheFriendlyPigeon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bucky has memory loss, Identity Issues, M/M, Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2019, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Smut, Steve is literally a man out of time, Swearing, Time Travel, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, but there are fluffy parts too I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:28:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 48,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22000201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starshot/pseuds/Starshot, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFriendlyPigeon/pseuds/TheFriendlyPigeon
Summary: Steve Rogers has always been in love with his best friend, Bucky Barnes. Desperate to follow when Bucky ships out to war in 1943, Steve volunteers for Project Rebirth, an experimental program meant to turn him into the world’s first super-soldier. Instead it fails, leaving him with a condition dubbed “Chrono-Impairment” which sees him travelling uncontrollably through time, to random points in both his and Bucky’s lives.But with Bucky brainwashed into working for HYDRA, and Steve living life on the run, torn between his own time and Bucky’s, will they ever find the happy ending they so desperately desire?(AKA the Stucky AU based on the book, "The Time Traveler’s Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 87
Kudos: 123
Collections: Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god, I can’t believe this story is actually done! I swear I’ve never written so much in such a short time before. Or been so confused. So much stress and last-minute panic XD 
> 
> Thanks so much to TheFriendlyPigeon who created the amazing art that inspired this fic, then let me do whatever I wanted with it! You can check out her other art [here](https://thefriendlypigeon.tumblr.com/), and you should, because it’s amazing!
> 
> Also a huge thank you to [Luxanee](https://buckyismyconstant.tumblr.com/) for beta reading this, and just generally putting up with me. I really couldn’t have done it without you! I totally confused myself with this plot, so your help catching my many mistakes was invaluable. I promise I will try to be more comma friendly from now on...
> 
> Also, a final note to clarify the story structure… Chapters alternate between Bucky and Steve’s POV, and apart from Chapter 2 (which is a one-off jump forward), all chapters occur sequentially in time (for the character whose POV it’s from). For the most part that implies a significant gap between Bucky and Steve’s narrative, which grows as the story goes on. Confused yet? I sure am… 😉

### Prologue

_"_ _My faith is in people. And I’m happy to say for the most part, they haven’t let me down.”_

What Bucky can’t help but wonder though, as he gazes down at Steve – small, vulnerable and bleeding in his arms – is would he still say that now?

It’s an irony not lost on him, that of the two of them, _he’s_ the one who has to make good on the sentiment. He – a weapon gone wrong – who’s spent the greater part of the last century living and breathing the very opposite.

Trust no one and they _can’t_ let you down.

But that’s not entirely true is it? Because he trusted Steve. Let Steve in, against his better judgement. And now, because Steve trusts people, Bucky has to as well.

Their shared future might just depend on it.

### West Berlin – 13th May 1955:

The facts the Soldier knows are these:

It’s Friday evening, and he’s in a safe house in Zehlendorf, West Berlin. It’s old and poorly kept, with moth-eaten paisley furniture, creaky floorboards, and faded wallpaper in a violently busy pattern that looks like it was probably the product of a deranged mind. Outside, the weather has been cool and dreary all day, with fitful showers and occasional thunder. It’s typical for this time of year – a slight persistent chill to the wind that keeps people off the streets and makes it easier for him to move about unnoticed.

Tomorrow there’s a meeting of diplomats and NATO personnel at the US Army Headquarters Compound, one of whom it is the Soldier’s job to terminate with extreme prejudice. As General James Keller travels the road from his hotel in the city, the Soldier will eliminate him using a single carefully placed shot from a custom sniper rifle, then disappear back behind the Iron Curtain like he never was. It will be only his second mission. 

These things he knows, because they are accounted for – part of the plan. Precise and organised, like every aspect of his life. 

There is one thing however – just one very small element – that is most definitely not accounted for, and it’s this:

The ridiculously small, alarmingly demanding, very naked man who appeared in his room five minutes ago, insisting on calling him “James”.

That, the Soldier has no idea how to deal with. 

In hindsight, the Soldier should have shot him as soon as he laid eyes on him. 

As soon as he turned around to find an unfamiliar man sprawled on the floor in an ungainly heap, muttering “Damn it, where to _this_ time?”

Every instinct told him to act decisively. That an American accent, and the ability to appear without warning behind locked doors, was dangerous. But the man’s size also confounded him, made him hesitate – because someone so small and so obviously weak could never pose a threat, especially not to him.

Then there was the way the man smiled when he saw the Soldier, addressing him in flawless Russian as “ _tovarishch_ ” – ‘comrade’ – and leaving the Soldier no choice but to stand down.

Code words were codes words, no matter who used them.

The uninvited visitor helped himself to a blanket from the bed, draping it around his scrawny shoulders, and pulling up one of the tasteless armchairs like he owned the place. He folded his hands neatly in his lap, assuming the position he still maintained now – head slightly canted, eyes curiously bright and eager. 

As though the Soldier is someone he _wants_ to see.

“How have you been, James?” he asks, mouth forming into a cautious smile.

An unfamiliar shiver runs up the Soldier’s spine. He narrows his eyes. _“Who the hell is James?”_ he demands, low and dangerous.

A slight pause, then, “I don’t speak Russian. You know that,” the small man says, expression edging toward troubled.

The Soldier’s trigger finger itches for his gun. Nothing about this makes sense. And things that made no sense made him suspicious. “Who is James?” he repeats in English, watching for tells. 

There are none, though. At least nothing that doesn’t seem genuine. The man presses his lips together, eyes flickering from the Soldier’s form, to the details of the room, and back again. They linger just long enough on the Soldier’s face to leave him feeling unsettled. Like trying to recall a dream after waking, when all that remains is a ghostly vague impression of fading details, and the harder you chase them, the faster they slip between your fingers.

“Who is James?” he demands again, harsher this time to cover the unease sinking into his stomach like a lead weight. 

The man smiles, but it’s a small, sad thing now. A touch desperate, even. “You are,” he insists.

“You’re mistaken,” the Soldier says bluntly. “I have no name. I am a tool of the state.”

This he knows to be true. They told him as much when he first awoke with nothing but the knowledge of how to kill, and the certainty that it was his purpose in life.

A pained flicker crosses the man’s face, though. He squares his shoulders, drawing them a little higher like he’s preparing to argue. “You’re not a tool, you’re a _person,_ James. They can’t take that away from you. I won’t let them.”

The name aggravates the Soldier for reasons he can’t explain. “Don’t call me that,” he snaps.

It doesn’t deter his visitor though. He glances around the room once more, frowning down at his hands as though calculating the answer to a complicated mathematical problem. Then, expression sombre, he asks possibly the most illogical question the Soldier has ever heard:

“When am I?”

Not _where_ , but _when_. As though that might somehow be up for debate.

“Berlin,” the Soldier offers, presuming a mistake. Such a small detail can surely do no harm. And if it does, it’s a problem easily solved.

The man shakes his head, “What year?” he insists.

The Soldier pauses, frowning. “1955.”

At that, the man sits up, eyes wide. He sweeps his loose fringe behind an ear, giving up when it immediately falls back across his forehead. “Did you say ‘55?” he asks, vivid blue eyes searching the Soldier’s. 

“Yes, ‘55.”

“So… you don’t know me yet?”

“Yet?” There’s an ache between the Soldier’s brows like if he frowns any harder he might be at risk of developing a migraine. “Know you… What do you mean?”

The man smiles a little ruefully. “Well, I suppose you had to meet me for the first time sooner or later.”

The Soldier feels like he’s rapidly losing control of this situation. “Explain yourself,” he barks, stabbing a finger into his palm with each subsequent demand. “Who are you, how did you get in here, and where are your clothes?”

His visitor just sits back, looking completely unruffled. “I guess I should probably start at the beginning,” he offers amicably. “I’m Steve, you’re James, and we’re friends – or least – we _will_ be. In the future. I’m here because five years ago, I volunteered for an experiment that went wrong and gave me a condition scientists call ‘Chrono-Impairment’. It means I time travel. To places – times – I have no control over. And when I do, I can’t take anything with me. So—” he gestures down at the blanket, “—no clothes.”

The Soldier presses his lips together. That has to be the most profoundly absurd thing he’s heard— _ever_. Clearly, this ‘Steve’ thinks he can play him for a fool. “Why should I believe you?” he demands, fingers straying for his rifle. “Time travel is impossible.”

Steve shrugs like if there was a better explanation, he’d offer it. “Stick around long enough, you’ll get to see me disappear. Until then… is there anything to drink in this place?”

The Soldier scowls. There’s no way what Steve’s saying can be true. He must be a spy, sent to infiltrate and stop the mission. Then he has the audacity to behave like this is some kind of hotel, and the Soldier his staff. _Americans_ , he thinks. _They’re every bit as ridiculous as he’s been led to believe._

When Steve makes to stand, the Soldier points the gun at him. “You’re a spy,” he accuses. “Amerikanskiy.”

As best as he can while still keeping the blanket around himself, Steve raises his hands in a non-threatening gesture. His manner now is cautious and respectful. Even if it’s not as fearful as the Soldier would like, it is an improvement. He’ll learn who’s in charge here soon enough.

“Pretty terrible spy, turning up naked with no weapons, don’t you think?” Steve asks quietly, eyes travelling between the gun and Soldier’s face. 

The Soldier squints suspiciously, letting the barrel of the gun drop slightly. There _is_ logic to that argument. But Steve being a spy is still more plausible than him being a time traveller, as he claims.

Steve sighs, shoulders sinking a little. It makes him look very small. “Please trust me James. I’m not here to stop you.”

It’s almost precisely the wrong thing to say.

Anger boils in the Soldier’s chest. “Soldat do not trust!” he snaps, moving swiftly toward Steve, and shoving the rifle up against his chest. “And do not call me James.”

To his credit, Steve stands his ground. From this distance, the Soldier can see tired dark smudges beneath his eyes, and one or two days stubble on a not actually so baby-cheeked face. How the blue of his eyes doesn’t quite run true, fading into a thin hint of deep forest green around the edge of the pupil.

The unsettled feeling from earlier skitters down the Soldier’s spine again and proceeds to lurch around his stomach like a drunk man stumbling in an alley. This isn’t right. He doesn’t know why, but it _isn’t_.

“Are you going to shoot me?” Steve asks.

It still doesn’t sound like the idea particularly concerns him, and the Soldier can’t fathom why. He’s reduced far lesser men to their knees. But for some reason, Steve is as disproportionately stubborn, calm, and collected, as he is small.

“I—” the Soldier stutters, unsure why he can’t seem to act on his intent.

Steve’s mouth skews wryly, at least half grimace. His blue-green eyes feel like they’re boring into the Soldier’s soul. “If you’re going to, then just do it. Because I’m with you to the end of the line.”

Something freezes in the Soldier’s brain. He _should_ shoot. But he can’t. His fingers won’t move. Not with the way Steve’s looking at him, like there’s nothing in the world but the two of them, and he’d give anything to keep it that way. He’s never been looked at like that before. Or…

He feels the gun slip from his hands as he stumbles back into the bed, hands clutching at his head.

_Sincerity in blue-green eyes. A star in a shield of red, white, and blue. Arms that tighten around him, comfort and reassurance…_

It hits him like a punch to the chest. As though the air from his lungs has vanished between one breath and the next. His head feels dizzy with it. 

Then almost as quick as it comes it’s gone. He’s left, sinking onto the edge of a creaky bed, head in his hands. 

Steve watches him with concern. “James?” he asks, uncertain.

The Soldier glares at him. What just happened? It was like a memory... or a dream. Unstable and indistinct, but stronger than anything he’s ever felt. Like it came from some deep part of him he didn’t even know existed.

“James?” Steve asks again, approaching him with animal-wariness.

Whatever it was, it was obviously Steve’s fault, the Soldier knows that much. He pushes past the smaller man to reach the kitchenette across the hall, retrieving a half-full bottle of vodka from back of dilapidated cupboard that groans on its hinges and takes a mouthful. It burns as it goes down, but that’s not the worst thing in the world. It helps ground him in this instant, far from whatever just happened. 

He allows a moment to collect himself, then returns to the bedroom, holding the bottle out to Steve. “Drink.”

Steve eyes the bottle warily. “That’s um… not quite what I had in mind.”

“You asked for a drink. Vodka is a drink.” He shakes it at Steve expectantly.

Steve swallows, glances at him again, then takes it, handling it with the care of somebody who’s just been offered a live grenade. He frowns at the clear liquid, tongue flicking across lips nervously, then gathers himself. “You don’t have coffee do you? Alcohol and I don’t really agree.”

An exasperated noise passes the Soldier’s lips. “You don’t like it, you get your own drink Amerikanskiy,” he hisses, snatching back the bottle and gesturing in the direction of the kitchen.

Steve eyes him with uncertainty for a moment, apparently unsure whether the offer is genuine or not. Then he shrugs and disappears across the hall. He’s gone for several minutes, which the Soldier uses to retrieve his rifle from the floor, lean it against the wall, and take a seat in one of the overstuffed armchairs. Clearly there’s no immediate threat, which means patience and information gathering are better options right now.

The noises coming from the kitchen suggest Steve has found a kettle and fired up the stove, and from the clink of metal against enamel, found something to drink. He hums softly as he does it, just loud enough to carry, in some tune the Soldier doesn’t recognise. It’s incongruously homely though, and makes him feel somehow more at ease.

When Steve finally does return it’s with two steaming mugs of something blacker than midnight. He holds one out to the soldier with a cautious smile. “Coffee,” he says by way of explanation.

The Soldier sniffs it, and takes a sip. It washes over his tongue, bitter and acrid, and he spits it back, making a face. “That’s not coffee.”

Steve chuckles at his reaction, resuming his position in the armchair opposite, legs tucked neatly beneath him. “You did say you hated it at first. The stuff they have in the Soviet Union is quite different apparently. This is American. Nescafé.”

The Soldier squints at the mug with suspicion, concluding the only way this devil-beverage is going to be consumable is with copious amounts of something stronger in it. He sets it down in the windowsill, unscrews the cap on the vodka, tips a large measure in, then tries again. It’s… better. Not good. But drinkable at least. And the warmth is pleasant. 

Steve looks like he’s struggling to keep a straight face, though.

“What?” the Soldier demands, forcing down another sip of the horrendous concoction.

Corners of his mouth twitching uncontrollably, Steve contemplates his own coffee before answering. His eyes are fond when they catch the Soldier’s, sparking something warm in the Soldier’s stomach that has nothing to do with vodka or coffee. “Nothing. Just… Sometimes you’re still you, even when you don’t know it.”

The Soldier frowns. “But I don’t know _you_.”

Steve smiles, and it’s definitely rueful this time. “Not yet. But you will.” He sips his coffee, delicate fingers laced around the mug.

They drink in a not entirely uncomfortable silence for several minutes, while the Soldier tries to make sense out of the whole situation. But it’s impossible. Not just improbable, but patently absurd.

“How do we know each other?” he asks eventually, hoping more information might help.

“That—” Steve says, staring out the window at the night sky, “—is a very long story. And one for another time I think.” He takes another gulp of his coffee, then sets the mug down on the sill, getting to his feet a little unsteadily. “I have to go soon. Plus, you asked me to go easy on you the first time.” He smiles like the idea amuses him. 

“What do you mean you have to go?” the Soldier asks, frowning as what Steve said sinks in. “And how could _I_ ask you? I’ve never met you before.”

Steve reaches out a hand to steady himself on the windowsill. “I know. I’ve met you though, in the future. Like I said, we’re friends. And you did tell me not to expect too much of you the first time.”

The idea of some future version of himself, saying that to a past version of Steve is… confusing to say the least. “How am I supposed to believe this?” he asks.

“I think—” Steve says, voice verging on a little unsteady, “You’re about to find out.”

He shoots an odd little smile at the Soldier, then without further fanfare, vanishes, blanket crumpling to the floor. All that’s left is a half-drunk mug of lukewarm coffee steaming beside the window. Like Steve never existed.

Blood rushes through the Soldier’s veins. 

So… Steve was telling the truth then.

Of course there’s no way to prove it beyond all reasonable doubt— it could still be a trap, or some American scheme. But the chances seem minute. Steve knew things he couldn’t otherwise, and there was something about the way he’d looked at the Soldier as he called him James… implausibly soft and gentle, like he’d _known_ him… wanted to…

Well, like he didn’t want to hurt him, at least.

The warmth of the last of the coffee slides through the Soldier, and it feels like something shifts beneath the deep and shrouded ice around his heart.

A friend. There’s something to that feeling. It’s familiar. Comforting even. Like wrapping his human fingers around a mug of something hot on a cold day. 

And he should report it. He _should_ —

The next day, newspapers across the world report a top NATO General assassinated in Berlin. Confidential MI-6 reports leaked to the Soviet Union confirm the ballistics: one slug, Russian-made, with no traceable markings. The international security community is baffled.

Three days later, the Soldier reports to his handlers at an unofficial KGB facility near Moscow. His report is thorough and detailed, covering every aspect of the mission, save just one:

An unexpected visitor in Berlin.

He can’t say why he leaves it out, only that it feels like the right thing to do. He doesn’t owe Steve any loyalty, no matter what he claims, but there’s no way to prove his existence, either. At least not until he returns, which he said he would. 

Somehow, in the long tedium between missions, the Soldier even begins to find himself anticipating it. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder, this chapter does jump forward in time (and therefore in Steve & Bucky's relationship). But don't worry, we do go back again to see how they got that way :)

### Sometime during the 1960s:

“I met you for the first time the other day,” Steve announces, bouncing up and down on the bed in his enthusiasm. It’s another loaner, some temporary safe house or motel that Bucky’s staying in while he carries out his work.

“Oh?” Bucky asks, turning from where he’s sitting hunched over the desk cleaning his gun, to offer Steve a knowing smile, as though what he just said makes perfect sense. Which he supposes it does – but only between the two of them. “And what was I like?”

Steve slides his legs off the edge of the bed, leaning forward so he can get closer to Bucky. Like this, their knees are just about touching when Bucky swivels around on his stool. It’s a far cry from his last trip to Berlin. This is _his_ Bucky. Or as close as can be anyway.

Steve makes a face. “You were… grumpy. And suspicious. You called me a spy.”

Bucky’s smile widens. “Oh yeah… I did, didn’t I?”

“And you didn’t like my coffee.”

“I didn’t. I thought you were trying to poison me.”

Steve fixes him with a sceptical expression and Bucky laughs. It looks good on him. The way it lights up his stunning blue eyes and eases the cares from his face. He’s always beautiful, but even more so when he’s happy. 

Steve pokes him in the leg, feigning offence. “You could have at least warned me, jerk!”

Bucky catches the hand before he can snatch it away, pinning it between a large palm and warm thigh, and leaning irresistibly closer. _Oh_ , Steve’s brain registers vaguely, heat flooding somewhere low in his stomach, _it’s going to be one of those kinds of visits._

“I’m sorry, punk…” Bucky murmurs, deep and gravelly, and clearly not sorry at all. Not if the smirk on his face is anything to go by. “I thought _you_ were the one who said we couldn’t share everything with each other. That the future had to unfold of its own accord.”

Which is true, Steve did say that. Still stands by it, too. But that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating as hell sometimes. “Don’t go using my own words against me,” he complains.

But the fingers of Bucky’s metal hand creep up the skin of Steve’s inner thigh, and suddenly Steve has a hard time recalling what he was disagreeing with in the first place. He scoots a little further toward the edge of the bed, chasing the touch as it slides higher, breath quickening. The quirk of Bucky’s mouth tells Steve he doesn’t fail to notice it.

They could never have done this when either of them were new to each other. The Bucky from the other night definitely wasn’t ready for it, and Steve, well—

He still remembers the first time he saw that metal arm. How it had scared him half to death, the idea of something so manufactured and inhuman being a part of Bucky. Now, he just sees it for the wonderful piece of artistry it is. Marvels at the finesse of control required to take something powerful enough to punch through walls or deflect bullets, and use it for pleasure instead. It’s cool against the fever-heat of his skin when they’re together, and–

Strong hands slip beneath his ass, lifting him bodily across the gap between them and depositing him straight into Bucky’s lap. _Fuck yes_ , Steve’s brain thinks. Or some part of him does anyway. The things Bucky can do with that arm are undeniably sexy. Everything about Bucky is sexy.

He drapes his legs to either side of Bucky, noting the quietly pleased noise that draws from him. Bucky’s watching him, dark and hungry, already half-hard beneath the fabric of his pants and Steve presses into it, watching the flutter of Bucky’s eyelashes as he leans his head back and groans. His metal hand easily cups Steve’s ass, the other wanders beneath his shirt, tracing nonsenical patterns across his back.

“So,” Bucky murmurs, “I thought I told you to go easy on me.”

“I did,” Steve says.

“And exactly what part of standing in front of an angry and confused assassin with a gun, while challenging him to kill you was ‘going easy,’ Steve?” 

“I knew you wouldn’t do it,” Steve says simply, leaning into the caress of skilled fingers up his back. 

“And how’d you figure that?”

“You.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I never told you that, Steve. I told you to be careful around me, especially in the early days.”

“But you also said the oldest me you’ve met was 36. Right now I’m only 30. So I figure I’ve got at least another 6 years before—" Steve snaps his mouth shut. The logical conclusion to that line of reasoning is less than comforting. He prefers not to think about it. Maybe it doesn’t end the way he and Bucky both suspect. “No matter what I said, you weren’t going to shoot me.”

Bucky’s silence lasts just a moment too long. Then he wraps both arms tight around Steve, as though by doing so he might be able to keep him here forever. “Fuck Steve, you’re such an idiot. You don’t _know_ that’s how it works. What if you’re wrong and I do hurt you?”

“You won’t.”

“I could.”

“You won’t,” Steve insists firmly. “And that _is_ how it works anyway. You can’t change what’s already happened. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

“Your friend?” Bucky guesses, mouth turning down at the corners.

“Among others,” Steve says. He hates how morose Bucky always gets whenever Steve mentions his ‘friend’ from before the war. Bucky knows of course, that Steve loved him. It was obvious from the beginning with the stories he told, in a way that Steve wishes could have been true before the war.

Which highlights one of the great ironies of this universe: that it would give him the Bucky he always longed for – one who loved him back – whilst simultaneously stripping him of everything that made him _Steve’s_ Bucky.

Now when Steve remembers, Bucky gets jealous, and Steve gets sad. Collectively they’re a mess, at their best when they forget everything else and just live in the present. 

As though reading his mind, Bucky pulls him closer, one hand on the nape of his neck, angling his mouth firmly against Steve’s. Clearly he’s of the same opinion as Steve – that they’re wasting valuable time here talking. 

Bucky kisses with jealous intensity, as though by doing so he might be able to hold both past and future at bay. God, how Steve wishes that were true. 

He kisses back with equal fervour, fingers scrabbling to unbutton the leather of Bucky’s vest and push it off his shoulders. Bucky grins wildly, resting his forehead against Steve’s for a second, breathing out against his mouth. 

“It’s like that is it, punk?” he asks, sounding not at all displeased.

His lips are delightfully bitten red, face flushed attractively pink. Steve nuzzles Bucky’s nose with his own, dragging his thumb over the line of Bucky’s jaw to rest in the soft cleft of his chin, then tilting it upward for a better angle. “Mmmhmm. It’s definitely like that,” he says, pressing another kiss to Bucky’s mouth and relishing the rough shiver it draws from him. He’s so responsive, and god— it drives Steve crazy.

Sure, maybe it’s not healthy to have a relationship with someone living in another decade to you. Someone you only get to see once every few months, if you’re lucky. But this is _Bucky_. The only other person Steve’s ever truly loved, besides his Ma, and he’ll take whatever he can get.

He drags a hand down Bucky’s chest, trailing fingers over smooth skin, solid muscle and thumbing lightly across a nipple. There’s a gasp into his mouth at that, and Bucky rucks Steve’s shirt up, breaking them apart just long enough to slip it over his head and discard it like it’s done something to personally offend him. Then they’re kissing again, Bucky running his hands up Steve’s sides, dragging him closer like they’re underwater and Steve’s his only source of oxygen.

Fuck— Steve wants him so bad when he’s like this, single-minded with determination, heat burning like wildfire beneath his skin. His heart on his sleeve, both Steve’s Bucky, and not his Bucky at the same time.

He’s got his mouth on Steve’s chest now, trailing greedy kisses down the sharp lines of his collarbone and ribs. Steve breathes a small cut-off moan into Bucky’s skin at the feel of it, tightening his fingers into the gentle waves of Bucky’s hair. He presses his nose against it, savouring the soap-clean scent. 

His body feels hot everywhere Bucky is touching, dizzy with him, as though whatever fire is beneath Bucky’s skin is catching. It makes Steve want to hold on and never let go. To give in to the swell emotion in his chest and tell Bucky how he really feels. How he’s always felt. But of course he can’t. Bucky doesn’t remember him. 

He rocks into Bucky’s lap, and Bucky’s hands slide to his hips, pulling him in again. They meet somewhere halfway, Bucky pushing up into Steve, definitely more than half-hard now, and Steve choking out a cry into Bucky’s hair. 

Bucky huffs a laugh against his throat, hot and breathy. “You really want it bad, don’t you?”

Steve snorts, palming the sizeable problem in Bucky’s crotch and drawing a satisfying cut-off gasp from him. “And you don’t?”

An irritating expression settles onto Bucky’s face though – fifty percent humour, fifty percent smartass, and a hundred percent familiar. It twists Steve’s heart in his chest.

“Never said that,” Bucky counters, brushing the fringe off Steve’s forehead. His eyes slide slowly down the lines of Steve’s body, leaving fiery heat everywhere they linger.

And fuck if that doesn’t push Steve to his absolute limit and beyond. 

He drags Bucky into another hot and messy kiss, then whispers into his ear impatiently, “So get on with it, jerk.”

Bucky makes a noise at that – satisfyingly loud and enthusiastic – and lifts Steve, tossing them bodily back onto the bed. Steve laughs as they bounce on the mattress, falling together in a tangle of limbs, tongues and desire. The remainder of their clothing disappears with startling efficiency, a skill honed to perfection from years of experience, and Bucky wastes no time getting a finger slicked up. 

Of course he knows exactly what Steve wants. By now (his time) they’ve been doing this for years. He’s not shy about it either— humming happily as he gets his mouth on Steve’s cock, and pressing the finger against his hole. Steve can’t help a quiet moan, torn between pushing back into it, or seeking out the heat of Bucky’s mouth. With an unhurried ease, Bucky opens him up, while working his shaft with tongue and lips. 

It feels _fantastic_ . Better than fantastic, really. More like every nerve in Steve’s body is lighting up every time Bucky sucks down or fingers him just right. Which is like— every time he moves. It doesn’t take long before Steve’s buzzing with it, little tingles of sensation shooting from his scalp to his toes. He’s not going to last long like this. Tightening his fingers into Bucky’s hair, he pulls him away from his cock, commanding breathlessly. “In me, _now_.”

It’s not exactly the most romantic thing he could say, but Bucky doesn’t seem to mind. He gives Steve’s dick one last long lick, grinning at the racked shudder it draws from him, then shifts himself up the bed until his arms bracket Steve’s head. His hair’s all mussed up, skin sweat-damp, and Steve revels in it when Bucky leans down to kiss him again, chasing the hot taste of his mouth, the solid feel of his body, and the memory of it all before it’s inevitably gone.

Because that’s the real truth left unspoken here. The urgent desperation underpinning this entire venture. Steve could be here for one hour, or two, or maybe even an entire day if he’s lucky. Or he could be gone in a minute. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened while they’re having sex. It’s an unfortunate side effect of heightened emotions triggering an attack.

Sometimes it feels like all this condition does is take from him. Clothes, stability, a life with Bucky—

But, as Steve’s learnt over the years, there is one thing that goes back with him when he returns to his own time; the physical record of their interaction. The warm satisfied feeling of having had Bucky in him, Bucky’s mouth on his skin, and the marks he leaves behind there. Those, Steve gets to hang on to for a few days longer, at least. Physical proof that this isn’t just some recurring fever-dream, but that they really were together, however fleetingly.

“You ready?” Bucky asks, and Steve nods. He’s been ready for Bucky his whole damn life. 

His skin is feverishly hot against Steve’s, consuming him from the inside out as Bucky pushes in, biting his bottom lip to stifle a moan. When he begins to move, Steve’s hands slip to his waist, trying desperately to hold on as he feels himself going to pieces. 

God, how he wishes they could have done this, back in Brooklyn. So many nights spent lying awake in bed, listening to Bucky’s breathing beside him and imagining that if only he had the courage to reach out, Bucky might even reach back...

Bucky throws his head back, somehow still managing to stroke Steve’s cock with one hand even as he fucks into him, because he’s unfairly talented like that, and Steve moans Bucky’s name around his own increasingly ragged breathing. 

What he wouldn’t give to have this in his life everyday. 

But it’s over far too soon – in a cascade of warmth that leaves Steve feeling boneless and dizzy, Bucky’s fingers digging into his skin as shudders through his own orgasm. 

Afterward they collapse, breathless and spent, onto the bed. Bucky’s cheeks are flushed, pupils blown, and he views Steve with wonder, like he can’t quite believe he’s still here. Steve can’t quite believe it either, if he’s being honest.

“God you’re gorgeous, Stevie,” Bucky breathes reverently, thumb tracing the line of Steve’s jaw.

It makes the corner of Steve’s mouth curl up a little, as much wry as glad, because Jesus it hurts so bad – the way Bucky seems to remember some things from before, without really remembering them at all. It’s like his memories from before are still in there somewhere, just buried too deep beneath whatever else has been done to him to draw on consciously. It’s almost harder than if there was nothing at all – just a blank slate and an entirely different person. He’s still unmistakeably Bucky beneath everything, and that means Steve can’t ever quite give up the stupid hope that one day _his_ Bucky will find his way back.

He snuggles against Bucky’s chest, letting him draw the blankets over them both. As they drift off to sleep, Bucky folds Steve securely into his arms. 

There are moments like this when Steve can imagine they’re back in their apartment in Brooklyn before Bucky shipped out to war and Steve signed up for the experiment that changed his life forever. It’s like a beautiful dream – everything they might have had if Steve had ever got up the courage to tell Bucky how he really felt.

Really, that’s the only good thing that ever came of Erskine’s experiment – that once in a blue moon, Steve gets to laugh in the face of time and death and take back what should have been his.

It’s too bad he doesn’t get to keep it.

“Love you, James,” he mumbles, only remembering the right name to use at the last possible second. 

There’s a soft kiss on his forehead. “Love you too, Steve.”

It surprises them both when Steve’s still there a few hours later as they wake. Bucky kisses him, a slow and lazy exchange of tongues, savouring the moment now the urgency of earlier is gone.

“I wish you could always be like this,” Steve says, stroking a hand softly down Bucky’s side.

“Naked and in bed with you?”

Steve snorts. “Not what I meant.”

Bucky grins, and there’s not a single subtle thing about it. “You’re not denying it though.”

Steve tries for scathing, but the look definitely gets lost somewhere along the way and turns fond instead. “What I mean is… I wish you could always know me like this. Seeing you like you were the other night— it was hard.”

“You mean in Berlin?”

“Yeah. You weren’t _you_. Not really. You didn’t know me.”

Bucky shoots him a small smile, cupping his face gently. “Steve, you know I love you right?”

“But—” Steve senses there’s definitely a but to this.

“—But,” Bucky agrees, “sometimes I wonder how they selected you for a special government experiment. You really can be a special kind of stupid.”

Coming from anyone else that might hurt – but from Bucky, especially after a declaration of love, it’s near enough to an endearment to not matter. “How do you mean?” Steve asks, losing himself a little in Bucky’s beautiful sea-blue eyes, so fixated on him. 

“That guy you met, he _is_ me. And I’m him.”

“He’s completely different to you though,” Steve argues, frowning. 

It must look funny or something though, because Bucky’s mouth immediately curves up. He leans forward, pressing a soft kiss to the skin between Steve’s brows, as though by doing so he might be able to smooth it out. “The only thing different about him is that he doesn’t know you yet.”

Steve stares blankly. 

Bucky pulls him closer, ostensibly still smiling, but with a hint of something more serious beneath. “The difference is _you_ Steve. It’s you who makes me who I am today.”

It takes a moment for the enormity of that to sink in. “But— I—" 

“So don’t give up on him, okay?” Bucky says. “I know he’s a difficult pain in the ass. Believe me I sympathise—” Steve rolls his eyes, shoving him and making a break for freedom, but Bucky catches him and pulls him back, grinning. “But he needs you. The present me needs you. Whoever I am next week will need you.”

Steve swallows against the lump in his throat. “Until the end of the line, huh?” he says softly.

“Until the end of the line, pal,” Bucky repeats, expression sombre, and Steve’s heart threatens to break.

Wherever the end of the line is for them, he’s pretty certain that _he_ at least only has six years until it comes around. And with two top secret supranational organisations on his tail and countless other nation-states who’d like to get their hands on him for the recipe to the serum running through his veins, there’s really only one realistic guess as to where the line ends.

He settles his head back onto Bucky’s shoulder, trying not to dwell too much on it. No one really knows how much time they have left, so how is this any different? A lot can happen in six years. Maybe someone finds a cure. Maybe it traps him back in his own time, leaving Bucky decades out of reach. You can’t change what’s already happened, and Steve’s visited him there in the future – the '80s, '90s – where even if Steve’s alive somehow, he’ll be an old man, and Bucky will still be... Bucky. Pushing 30 at best.

However you look at it, it’s not good. But Steve has to have faith, because that’s what he _does_. Because Bucky needs him.

And for now anyway, they still have time. 


	3. Chapter 3

### 1955 - 1956

Steve does return, as promised, several weeks after the Soldier’s first meeting with him in Berlin.

It’s night, which is fortunate, because when he appears, the Soldier is out running laps in the exercise yard. The KGB facility where he lives is a sprawling utilitarian building, designed to pass from the outside as yet another unremarkable industrial facility. Four wings enclose a secure central yard, disguising an expansive subterranean structure beneath that houses everything from state secrets to experimental weapons development. 

At close to midnight though, the Soldier is the only person around when Steve appears out of nowhere, landing on all fours in his path, with a gasp. The Soldier skids to a halt and Steve’s head snaps up, panicked. 

“James,” he breathes, with obvious relief.

The Soldier feels anything but though. A thousand dark windows watch them from every angle and the back of his neck prickles with it. The consequences of being caught with an American who has no business being in Russia would be… unpleasant, to say the least. Not to mention his being found in a secure, top-secret facility.

No matter the Soldier’s usefulness to the state, he doubts it would shield him from the consequences of _that_.

Hissing with displeasure, he yanks Steve up by a slender arm. “You can’t be here, Amerikanskiy.”

Even at full height, Steve’s small, standing barely above the Soldier’s shoulder. He’s got a slight, boyish frame, and beneath it the lines of his bones are readily visible. Not unhealthy so much as a little undernourished, with no fat to spare. It would be so easy to break him, the Soldier thinks.

Steve glances around them, shivering in the cool air. “Where are we?” he asks.

Of course he’s naked again, as promised. There’s no self-consciousness to it though – no attempt to shield himself from the Soldier’s curious gaze.

And the Soldier _is_ curious. It’s hard not to be when a man drops out of thin air, claiming he’s travelled through time just to see you. The last visit he’d been too shocked to bother getting a good look at Steve. This time, it’s impossible _not_ to.

His skin is smooth and pale beneath the Soldier’s fingers, like it probably doesn’t see a whole lot of sun. The knobbly joint of his wrist is easily circled with thumb and forefinger alone, adding to the impression that Steve might simply disintegrate if exposed to anything more than moderately enthusiastic breeze. His small chest tapers into a narrow waist and bony hips, with a surprising line of blond fuzz leading downward from his bellybutton to— well, other parts of his anatomy. Which – the Soldier notes with totally professional detachment – are _not_ as proportionally sized as might be expected.

He glances back up to find Steve’s bright eyes on his, mouth raised ever so slightly in one corner, as though the attention amuses him.

For reasons unfathomable to the Soldier, his face becomes hot and flushed. 

He snatches his hand from Steve’s arm, determinedly looking everywhere but _there_. It’s not as though he’s unfamiliar with immodesty – the medical check required after every mission begins with him stripped naked on a table – but somehow, this is different. Slipping the jacket from his shoulders, the Soldier holds it out to Steve. “You can’t be here,” he says bluntly. “You need to leave.”

Steve shrugs into the garment, buttoning it up at the front. It’s outlandish on him, so oversized as to leave him swimming in it, but it does hang just low enough to cover what it needs to. Finally, the Soldier feels safe to look again.

“Can’t leave,” Steve says. “I told you last time, I don’t have control over when I travel. I’ll be here as long as I’ll be here.” He looks around again, squinting at the buildings. “Here is… Russia?”

The Soldier makes a noise of surprise. “You recognise it?”

Steve exhales, breath misting on the cool air. “Yeah, I’ve visited you here a few times. Before—” He stops, wrapping his arms around his torso like he’s cold, then repeating. “Yeah, I’ve been here.”

The Soldier feels like there should be more to that statement, but Steve's decided the better of it. He debates whether or not to inquire, but ultimately, his common sense trumps his curiosity. An open courtyard where anyone could see them isn’t the time or place for that. They need to get inside, away from prying eyes and ears.

“Come,” the Soldier says, motioning for Steve to follow, and heading for the nearest entrance. The hallways between here and his apartment are many, but easily navigated, and largely devoid of guards at this time of night.

The first lesson the Soldier learns though, is that Steve doesn’t move fast. It’s not that he doesn’t comprehend the urgency of their situation, just that even the Soldier’s brisk walking pace leaves him lagging behind, a distinctive wheeze creeping in between his breaths.

Steve, as it turns out, is asthmatic.

There’s nothing to be done for it, save for the Soldier neutralising a couple of guards who might otherwise have seen them. He makes quick work of it – knocking them out from behind and leaving a half-empty vodka bottle from a nearby office beside them. So much the better if they put their brief lapse in memory down to excess drinking. At least they’ll be too scared of reprisal to report it.

After what feels like an agonisingly long time, he finally pushes Steve through the door to his apartment and locks it behind them, releasing a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. At the flip of a switch, dim lights flicker to life and cast a washed out glow over the room. There’s not much to it, just a small single bed, table and chairs, and a stove in one corner. But it’s his and his alone, which is more than most people in Russia get these days.

Chest rising and falling with exertion, Steve stands awkwardly in the centre of it, seemingly unsure what’s expected of him. The Soldier stands uncomfortably as well, unsure what to do with Steve. He’s so diminutive he makes the space look large even though it isn’t.

“So,” Steve starts, tongue darting briefly across his upper lip in a nervous dash.

The Soldier watches it. This whole situation is immensely inconvenient. “Why are you here?” he asks, deliberately too sharp to be friendly.

Steve runs a hand through his hair. “Beats me. One minute I’m standing in line at the diner. Next I feel myself getting dizzy, so I run outside. Then I’m here.” As though to validate his story, his stomach rumbles loudly, and he glances down at it somewhat sheepishly.

“Yes but, why _here_ specifically?” the Soldier demands. “You said you’ve been before.”

Steve makes a noise of discomfort at that, a small frown creasing his brows. It’s the same frown as before, when he stopped himself from saying more. Best guess, it’s the face he makes when he’s trying to figure out a lie. Or at the very least, conceal some truth. The Soldier folds his arms, leaning against the door and waiting.

Steve sighs, defeated in a way that makes him seem even smaller. “I’m here because _you’re_ here.”

Surprisingly, there’s no hint of a lie in it. He leans back, bracing himself on the table with the heels of his hands, gaze resting on the Soldier as though waiting to see how he’s going to react. 

The Soldier watches, narrowing his eyes. “What does this have to do with me?”

There really is something about seeing a man with no sense of modesty look uncomfortable. Steve’s face transforms through the oddest range of expressions, including something not entirely dissimilar to a grimace, before settling back to neutrally hopeful. “Do you have any food?” he asks, as though the sudden change of topic might somehow go unnoticed.

There’s no way the Soldier’s letting him get away with it though. “You didn’t answer my question,” he says flatly.

A hint of desperation starts to creep into Steve’s features. “You haven’t answered mine either,” he counters.

“I asked first.”

Steve pinches his nose, breathing out a long sigh. “Fine…” he says, “How about this – you find me something to eat, then you can ask me whatever you want. Deal?”

The Soldier tilts his head, considering it. Food isn’t hard to come by here – his meals are provided in a kitchen the next floor down, and it’s not unusual for him to eat after hours too. A natural hazard of having a fast metabolism and intense physical training regimen. No one would look twice if he retrieved some now. Something tells him Steve knows that too. 

The idea of Steve knowing more about what’s going on here than him is definitely irritating. But maybe if he obliges, he can even the playing field somewhat.

“All right,” he says, pushing off the door, index finger pointed squarely at Steve. “But you stay here.”

Steve nods, outwardly earnest and compliant, but even so, the Soldier senses trouble. As he closes and locks the door behind him, he sighs. What did he do to deserve this?

Several minutes later he returns, arms full with a pot of hearty beef and vegetable soup, rye bread, and coffee – the latter an afterthought from his first meeting with Steve. He makes quick work of reheating the soup on the stove then spoons it into chipped bowls, setting them on the table with thick slices of bread and generous servings of coffee.

Steve takes a seat opposite him. “Thank you,” he says seriously, picking up a spoon, and prodding at some unidentifiable piece of vegetable in the bowl. “Travelling always makes me hungry, and I was already hungry, so…” Bringing the spoon to his mouth, he blows on it to cool it, then takes a tentative first sip. His face lights up. “This is really good!”

Something warm stirs in the Soldier’s chest at his enthusiasm. “ _Solyanka_ ,” he says. “It’s traditional.”

“I like it,” Steve declares, tearing a piece off the bread loaf and soaking it in the thick rich soup. He pops it in his mouth, sucking residual liquid off his fingers.

Eyes drawn to the action, the Soldier watches him. It makes him feel a little funny in his stomach. Kind of unbalanced somehow, which seems to be a running theme around Steve. For someone so small, he really does have a presence much bigger than expected. 

“Your coffee on the other hand…” Steve says, making a face as he sips at the liquid in the mug.

“No complaints, Amerikanskiy,” the Soldier growls in warning. He may be feeding his wayward visitor, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to let him get away with anything.

Steve holds up his hands placatingly. “I just wish I could bring you some from home. I’m sure you’d come around to it.”

The Soldier grunts. “Your home you mean, not mine.”

Steve’s lips twitch, turning down thinly at the edges. His answer, when it comes, sounds tired and resigned. “Yeah… sure.”

They eat in silence for several minutes. When the Soldier finishes his own bowl, he pushes it away, watching Steve finishes his. He’s delicate and precise in everything he does, with long elegant fingers, full pink lips, and long blond eyelashes you don’t really see until you look closer. They contrast with the blue-green of his eyes when he looks up, smiling cautiously.

The Soldier quickly averts his gaze, clearing his throat. Being around Steve really does make him feel odd, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. “You said you would explain,” he accuses, to break the awkward silence.

Steve licks his spoon clean and sets it down in his bowl with a clink. “I did.”

“So explain. Why have you come to me? Do you travel to other people, too?”

Steve breathes in slowly, settling his hands on the table and avoiding the Soldier’s gaze. “No,” he says eventually. “Only you. I mean, sometimes I see my own past or future too, but mostly it’s always you.”

It’s hard not to frown at that. “Why?” the Soldier asks.

_‘Why me?’_ is what he really means. An explanation as to why, out of all the myriad of human beings on this earth, Steve has this connection with _him_ specifically, and no one else.

The smile that touches Steve’s features is both sad and a little remorseful. He traces random looping patterns across the surface of the table, still not making eye contact. “Because you’re the most important person in the world to me, James,” he says quietly.

Something long disused stirs inside the Soldier, uncurling, stretching—

_James…_

_A cool hand on a fevered brow, a space too small for the two of them, whispered endearments out of earshot, and longing— so much longing— but you can never breathe a word of it…_

“James?”

The Soldier comes back to himself with a start. There’s concern in Steve’s bright blue eyes, the earlier furrows between his brows returned. The Soldier opens his mouth to reprimand him for using that name again, but there’s something warm and soft against the skin of his hand, and he looks down, frowning.

The tips of Steve’s fingers rest on his open palm, featherlight, but unmistakably touching.

The Soldier stares at them, paralysed by the onset of a writhing mess of feelings in his chest. Half of them seem to be telling him to go with it – just close his hand around Steve’s and pull him closer, while the other half—

He snatches his hand away, throwing the chair back for good measure and scrambling to his feet, shoulders tight.

Steve’s face falls.

“I can’t be your most important person,” the Soldier snaps, still acutely aware of the sensation of warm spots on his palm. “I don’t _know_ you.”

Steve looks properly upset now. He’s got his hands tucked firmly into his lap like he’s holding them down, breathing long and slow through his nose. “You asked a question and I answered. I can’t help it if the answer isn’t what you wanted to hear.”

That’s an understatement if the Soldier’s ever heard one. “You can’t just walk in here, and tell me how my future is going to be. It hasn’t happened yet!” he yells. Is this what his life is going to be now? Ongoing inconvenience from someone he doesn’t know, and a fear of the consequences that might inevitably follow?

“I just did,” Steve says, jaw set stubbornly like his is the final word. “And I will again next week, or the week after, or the week after that. You can fight it, or you can accept it. But either way, we can’t change it.”

The declaration hangs between them, tense and heavy. The Soldier resents the implication behind it – that he’s not in control of his own life. Briefly, he even considers retrieving the knife in his boot, imagining the feel of the hilt under his fingers and the give of soft flesh around the blade. 

Maybe he’ll show Steve just how malleable the future really is. 

But as soon as he considers it, he feels a wave of revulsion. Steve might be annoying and inconvenient, but he’s also been nothing but upfront since the Soldier met him. Also, he seems genuinely happy to see the Soldier in a way no one else is. It’s hard not to feel at least a little won over by that.

Steve sighs again, looking at his lap a little forlornly. “Please James… don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Just… give us a chance. I promise it’s worth it.”

He sounds like he has complete and utter faith in that fact. Hesitantly, the Soldier resumes his previous position seated at that table, considering it. If what Steve says really is true, then fighting this is a losing battle. “Worth it how?” he asks, still suspicious.

The beginnings of a soft smile appear on Steve’s face. “Well… we enjoy being friends.”

The Soldier stares at him. “What’s so great about being friends?”

Steve’s eyebrow twitches a little. He swallows, hard. “Uh… How about we just try it, and you can find out?”

The Soldier makes a face at him. Clearly, this is his lot now. Putting up with a small, irritating man, determined to make life difficult. “Punk,” he says, the word slipping naturally from between his lips before he can get a hold on where it’s actually coming from.

But Steve looks positively thrilled. He grins, bright and breathless. “Yeah, you did always call me that.”

After he travels, the soldier puzzles on his words.

His name is James. And he’s somebody’s most important person.

It feels strange to even think of it. He’s a tool, not a person. But maybe he _could_ be more? And the more he thinks about it, the more he likes the idea of having something that belongs just to him. It’s selfish and unreasonable, and almost certainly against protocol, but in the end he decides to keep both – Steve and his name – to himself.

By the time Steve returns again, the Soldier is awaiting his visit with something a little closer to enthusiasm.

Steve’s visits have no rhyme or reason. They can be days apart, or months. Sometimes he’s young – mid-20s, sometimes perhaps a decade older. Sometimes he stays minutes, sometimes hours, and once, even a whole day. Sometimes he looks harried, tired, and desperate. Other times he seems relaxed and at ease with the world.

But one thing always remains the same: he’s always happy to see the Soldier.

As it turns out, happiness is infectious

“So… have you got any clothes for me?”

The sheer curtains of the hotel room sway slightly, as though disturbed by some unseen current of air. The Soldier supposes that’s what happens when you displace matter that really belongs in another time and place, to the present time and place instead. The world has to move to accommodate it.

He turns to face the disturbance. It’s smiling at him.

Rolling his eyes in a way that definitely doesn’t match the feeling of lightness skipping in his stomach, he points to the floor behind Steve. “Bag.”

Steve wanders over to a large duffel in the corner of the room and rummages through its contents until he finds what he’s looking for – underwear, a shirt, pants, and sweater in his size. The Soldier averts his eyes while Steve puts them on. It’s not that he particularly minds seeing Steve naked, or that Steve minds him looking. More that it just seems like the socially appropriate thing to do.

Fully dressed, Steve leans against the windowsill at the Soldier’s side, looking down onto bustling city streets with him. It’s a dance they’ve rapidly become accustomed to – Steve showing up unannounced and naked – to the extent that the Soldier now travels with a spare set of clothes just for him.

It’s easier than trying to scrounge some up, if or when he shows. Less likely to cause questions too – although as the Soldier’s already learnt, Steve’s nearly as good at deflecting and lying as he is. Too good.

This Steve is young – late 20s maybe. He’s cheerful and enthusiastic, lacking the weary and anxious aura his older self always has. Beyond about 30, give or take, he’s suspicious of shadows, always looking over his shoulder in a way that makes the Soldier wonder at the time he’s come from... Whether travelling like he does is a burden or an escape for him.

“So,” Steve begins, mouth curving into the lopsided smile the Soldier has come to associate with mischief. “You promised you’d teach me how to fight people.”

The Soldier makes a face he hopes gives that statement the proper scepticism it deserves. The chances of this lightweight fighting anyone and actually winning… “When did I say that?”

The smile broadens, crinkling around Steve’s eyes too as he waves offhandedly. “Oh you know… 1960 something? I think?”

Silently, the Soldier curses his future self for putting ideas in Steve’s head. Once they get in there, there’s no getting them back out again. He’s frustratingly stubborn and determined like that. Mentally, the Soldier makes a note to return the favour to his future self, before realising the futility of the endeavour, and cursing this whole arrangement again.

“All right,” he concedes with a gruff sigh, moving into the centre of the room. 

Steve trails after him eagerly. 

The Soldier might not be able to teach Steve how to beat anyone in a fair fight, but he can at least pass on a few dirty tricks to help him escape from a tight spot.

It’s easy for the Soldier to blend into the crowd amidst the New Year’s celebrations in Madripoor. Early evening and the island’s revellers are already out, making the most of the festive atmosphere at bars and restaurants, and spilling over into the streets. Situated in the Strait of Malacca, halfway between Singapore and Sumatra, Madripoor’s a city of extremes; grotesque wealth against utter destitution. Where the Soldier is in Hightown however, it’s money and influence on display tonight. A flashy riot of colour and noise.

He passes through the crowd unnoticed, sweat dampening his cotton shirt in the clammy equatorial heat. Long sleeves and a glove hide his metal arm. His target is attending a party at the ostentatious Sovereign Hotel, along with numerous wealthy guests and dignitaries. By the end of the night, one of them will be dead.

Poison isn’t his usual modus operandi, but his training covers all eventualities, and the needs of the homeland are not always so blunt as to involve firearms and brute force. By the time the British Ambassador realises something is wrong, his fate will already be sealed, and the Soldier on his way back across the Strait to Singapore and home.

It’s easy enough to infiltrate the premises, posing as a staff member. Throughout the evening, he circulates with plates of canapés and trays of drinks, waiting for an opportunity.

In short, everything is looking good – until suddenly it isn’t.

As he returns to the kitchen about 9PM to pick up another plate, the air subtly shifts around him. That can only mean one thing…

With a soft exclamation of surprise, Steve drops onto the tiles by the Soldier’s feet. 

Suddenly it feels like every head in the room turns, eyes laser-focused on the two of them. Steve glances around, then up at the Soldier, for once covering himself as best he can.

“James?” he says, expression betraying obvious unease, eyes sliding back to the people staring at them in various states of shock.

The same unease stirs in the Soldier’s gut. If there was a worse time for Steve to show up, he can’t imagine it. Short of bullets actually flying. Though judging from the expressions of the staff, that’ll be happening soon enough.

For a moment, everyone seems too shocked to move. Then, as though a current of electricity has lanced through the floor, all hell breaks loose. Several kitchen staff bolt for the hallway, and armed security personnel burst back in, guns firing. By the Soldier’s feet, Steve folds in on himself, looking like he wishes he could disappear again.

A rush of fear shoots through the Soldier. _He_ can cope with this situation, but Steve—

He’s delicate. Human. Breakable.

And as much of a pain in the ass as he is, the Soldier doesn’t want that for him. There’s a split second decision to be made here – the mission or the time traveller. The right answer is logical. Mission first, always. It’s what his training tells him, what he knows he _should_ do.

But Steve is, well… Steve. It’s not his fault he ends up where he does. Logic doesn’t really factor into the equation.

With a curse, the Soldier shoves him behind a set of steel cupboards, raising his metal forearm to deflect the bullets already singing through the air around them.

“Stay,” he instructs gruffly, not bothering to wait for a reply.

Hopefully Steve listens.

Throwing himself back into the fray, the Soldier makes quick work of disabling the guards in the room, arming himself with their weapons. The remaining kitchen staff take cover but he ignores them, calculating the odds of still being able to complete the mission before further back up arrives. Achievable, though likely with casualties higher than planned. It’s either that or failure, though.

He feels a stab of annoyance at Steve’s supremely poor timing, but much to his surprise it ends up swamped beneath a much greater feeling of concern. He can’t leave Steve alone in this for long.

Feet pounding across the carpet, the Soldier speeds down a lavish hallway and into the main banquet hall, heart thudding as he bursts through the doors and scans the surprised faces of the crowd for his target. The ambassador is seated at the far end of the room. Expression part shock and part outrage, he stands, gaping open mouthed at the intrusion. Which is bad – for him.

The Soldier’s bullet hits him before anyone can react. As his body crumples to the floor, the room erupts into utter screaming disarray. Attendees scatter and more security personnel storm into the room from doors on the far side. They open fire and several civilians fall, collateral damage due to sloppy marksmanship.

But the Soldier is already back out and down the hallway to collect Steve from the kitchen. Getting him out of here unharmed is going to be no easy task – easier to just leave him behind and hope he disappears before anyone can harm him. Easier certainly… but not _right_. There’s a sinking sensation in his stomach as the Soldier processes this realisation. He doesn’t want to leave Steve behind. Risk him being hurt, even though he should…

There’s no time to dwell on it though. He kneels in front of Steve. “We need to get out of here. Can you hold onto my back?”

Steve nods, wide eyed and pale. “I think so,” he says, flinching as more gunfire sounds close by. 

It’s not the resounding confidence the Soldier had hoped for, but it’s going to have to do. He turns, allowing Steve to climb onto his back, legs falling to either side of his hips. With his right hand, the Soldier supports Steve’s thigh, while with his left, he wields one of his stolen guns. In normal circumstances, right-handed marksmanship comes more naturally to him, but this has the benefit of enabling him to deflect bullets if required.

It’s definitely required.

Steve clings to him, legs wrapped tight around the Soldier’s waist, arms circling his neck, and cheek pressed hard against the spine of his upper back. Every so often, the Soldier feels Steve’s breath there, warm through the fabric of his shirt. It’s the closest they’ve been since their second meeting - the hand incident, as the Soldier now thinks of it.

But having Steve pressed up against him like this isn’t unpleasant at all. On the contrary, he fits the curve of the Soldier’s back like he was made for it, which sends a confusingly hot sensation straight to the Soldier’s belly.

There’s no time to consider it though, not with a fight on their hands.

But finally, several breathless minutes and many more dead security personnel later, he and Steve stumble out onto the main street, vanishing seamlessly into the celebrations of the crowd. That at least, was always part of the plan.

Later, no one will be able to recall their faces over anyone else’s.

They stow aboard a ferry bound for Singapore, sitting with backs against a bulkhead, watching the midnight fireworks rise and fall above the light-saturated skyline.

“You’re hurt,” Steve says suddenly, eyes no longer on the view, but on a dark smear on the fabric around the Soldier’s right bicep.

The Soldier grunts, casting a careless glance over it. He did think he’d felt something during the fight. But the wound is only small. Insignificant. It will heal.

That’s not good enough for Steve though. Worry creases his forehead. He darts across the deck, disappearing for a moment, and returning with a small first aid kit from God-knows-where. It’s not much – just the basics – but he still makes the Soldier peel his shirt off, soaking a wad of gauze in alcohol to sterilise it then applying it gently to clean the wound.

The Soldier hisses at the sting, biting his lip. Sure it might heal quickly, but it still hurts like hell now.

Steve’s eyes meet his, resting there a moment before resuming the action. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, lips pressed tight. “It’s my fault. You’re lucky it’s only a graze.”

The Soldier grunts. This is nothing. He’s had worse injuries in training, but his modifications allow them to heal in a fraction of the time it would take a normal person. He supposes Steve doesn’t know that though. “Couldn’t leave you there on your own,” he says, slightly softer than intended.

The corner of Steve’s mouth lifts wryly. He discards the wad of blood-soaked fabric, dampening a new piece and sweeping it across the wound again, remarkably gentle. “I still don’t like that you got hurt on my account.”

The Soldier leans his head back against the bulkhead they’re next to, viewing Steve from under his eyelashes. Shadows play across his face in the half-light of a nearby storm-lamp as he works, hands soft and delicate against the Soldier’s skin. It’s not an unpleasant feeling, besides the pain. Maybe even something he could get used to. But that curiously hot sensation from earlier is back again too, glowing in his stomach with the warmth of an ember, and he can’t figure out what it means. “Where’d you learn to do this?” he asks, mostly to distract himself from it.

A breeze ruffles softly through Steve’s hair. He tosses his head, sweeping the fringe out of his eyes. “My Ma was a nurse. She always used to do this for me after I got into fights. Then, when she died… someone else did it.”

The hot feeling dies like a fire doused in water. “Your friend?” the Soldier asks, immediately prickly. 

Steve often talks about the friend he shared an apartment with before the war, and the Soldier can’t figure out why it makes him feel the way it does. Who Steve’s friends are is no business of his, and this particular one left his life years ago, at least the way Steve tells it. Yet whenever he talks about the man called ‘Bucky’ his whole manner changes. There’s a sadness to him, but happiness too, and a light behind his eyes reserved for no one else.

It annoys the hell out of the Soldier. 

Steve tosses his head again, glancing briefly at his bloodstained hands in annoyance, and without thinking, the Soldier reaches out, softly brushing Steve’s hair behind his ear for him. 

Steve jolts like he’s been struck by lightning. His eyes lock with the Soldier’s, and there’s something in them, inscrutable, but overflowing with emotion he can’t hide. It takes the Soldier’s breath away.

Almost as soon as it appears though it’s gone, and Steve’s shoulders sink back to their usual position, expression unreadable as he resumes his ministrations, gently winding a bandage around the Soldier’s wound and tying it off with a neat knot. Maybe it’s just the Soldier’s imagination, but he feels like Steve’s fingers linger there longer than strictly necessary, as though unwilling to relinquish contact. Eventually though, with a small sigh through parted lips, they do.

“All done,” Steve says, not quite managing to look at the Soldier as he packs the first aid kit away.

“Thank you,” the Soldier says, surprised to find genuine meaning behind it. The care might not be necessary, but it isn’t unwelcome either. Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing to have people who care about you.

Bow-waves wash past the sides of the boat, forming a soft blanket of sound from the darkness around them. Steve sits beside the Soldier in companionable silence, both of them enjoying the freshness of the ocean air – a stark contrast to the stifling heat of the city. It’s nice. Spending time with Steve like this – it feels right somehow.

But when Steve smiles, rueful and a touch apologetic, the Soldier knows their time together is coming to an end.

Far too slow and cautious for it to be anything but deliberate, Steve reaches out, moving to place his fingers lightly over the Soldier’s flesh forearm. The Soldier watches the action unfold, heart skipping faster in his chest, but forcing himself to be still. This time – when skin touches skin – neither of them jump.

It’s not exactly relaxed – both of them are tense and on edge, the air between them charged with a strange energy – but it’s nothing like the first time Steve tried it either.

“Happy New Year, James,” he says, watching the Soldier’s face closely.

It feels like the Soldier should do something to return the gesture. More than a little hesitant about the implications, he lifts his left hand, pausing only briefly to second-guess before settling it over Steve’s. “Happy New Year, Steve.”

The feeling that comes over him is impossible to describe, but everything about it is right. He knows it deep inside, in the way Steve’s eyes are bright, and fond, and something else—

The way they look when he talks about his friend.

The Soldier’s heart flips in his chest.

_The swell of blood on a split lip, bruises that darken across ivory skin, strong hands lifting him from a table, sadness in beautiful blue-green eyes…_

He looks up.

Steve’s gone.

“You deviated from the mission. What went wrong?”

The aging man in front of the Soldier is severe, in every sense of the word. Eyes like carved ice, chin sharpening to the tip of a pointed goatee. The very embodiment of state power, inflexible and unyielding.

Comrade Karpov is his handler, the one at whose pleasure the Soldier serves. And right now, he’s anything but pleased. The Soldier holds himself smartly at attention, returning answers in quickfire Russian as he’s expected to. “There was an unforeseen complication.”

“And that was?”

“Interference from an outside source.”

Eyes narrow in his direction. “And was this source neutralised?”

The Soldier shifts his weight. Lying doesn’t come naturally to him, any more than telling selective truths. Either feels like bridging a physical barrier, and it slows his response time more than he’d like. “It was.”

It’s not entirely a lie. That Steve disappeared of his own volition is irrelevant.

Karpov doesn’t shift an inch, though. Not even to blink. His eyes bore into the Soldier, dark and dangerous. If it were possible to read minds, the Soldier has no doubt that Karpov would be capable of it. A sensation prickles down the back of his neck – sweat maybe, or something more primordial. A caveman’s sense of fight or flight.

Lips tightening, Karpov breathes deeply through his nose. A second later though, the tension eases from his figure. It should be reassuring, but the Soldier can see it for what it is – a façade, nothing more than skin-deep.

It’s a dangerous game he’s playing.

“See it doesn’t happen again,” Karpov instructs him sharply. “Next time, you follow the plan. Russia has no tolerance for error. Dismissed, Soldat.”

“Yes, Sir.” The Soldier salutes and leaves the room, feeling Karpov’s eyes on his back the whole the way.

It’s hard, keeping a secret.


	4. Chapter 4

### 1943

It’s hard, letting go.

Even when you know it’s the right thing to do. Even when you don’t have a choice.

But for Steve, his final evening with Bucky is torture. Death by a thousand small cuts with every smile, every look, every touch.

Inseparable since a fortuitous meeting on the playground nearly two decades ago, it seems like a cruel travesty that the world might really part them. But it’s war, and the stakes are higher than any single man – or even two best friends – can overcome. Steve understands that, maybe even more than Bucky, he thinks. The world needs people with principles and moral integrity right now, and Steve would sign up in a heartbeat if he could. Offer himself for the cause, because it’s the _right_ thing to do.

He tried, when Bucky first got the draft. Even though Bucky told him not to— told him he was better off safe at home, and that he couldn’t forgive himself if anything happened to Steve because he followed a friend into the fray.

As ever, he missed the point.

Because beneath everything else moral and principled and right, lies just one irrefutable fact – Steve Rogers would walk into Hell itself, stare down the Devil, and sell his immortal soul into eternal damnation, if that’s what it cost to bring Bucky Barnes home safe.

By comparison, death seems like an easy out.

Besides, it doesn’t matter anyway, because the army turns him down. Once, twice, three times… And by the time his fifth application is declined, Steve realises he’s running out of options. Like it or not, Bucky’s shipping out to Europe tomorrow, and Steve’s not going with him. It hits him hard as they attend the Stark Expo together – Steve, pointedly ignoring his ‘date’ because as much as he wants Bucky to have a good time, he also really wants him to himself, just for tonight.

It’s hard, loving your best friend.

Even more so when he doesn’t love you back.

It’s the secret Steve can never tell, but it’s there on the tip of his tongue, heavy in his heart, as Bucky wraps his arms around him after they argue that night, squeezing the life out of him in a hug so tight it’s hard to breathe. “Punk,” he says fondly, somewhere by Steve’s ear.

“Jerk,” Steve returns, force of habit.

He breathes in the smell of Bucky’s freshly starched uniform, the musky scent of his cologne, memorising every last detail for what might be the last time. Watches Bucky’s receding back, feeling his resolve shatter to pieces in his chest.

Love is the only thing that stops him from chasing after Bucky. That halts his steps, holds his tongue, and resigns him to doing what’s right for the most important person in his world. 

If friendship is all Bucky can give, then friendship has to be enough.

It’s a shock to Steve when the army actually accepts him on the sixth try.

He doesn’t know what the good Doctor Erskine sees in him, but he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s a special project – he knows that much – though the full extent doesn’t become clear until much later on, after training and tests at Camp Lehigh, and after meeting Peggy, who for reasons unknown, takes a real shine to him. She’s a lot like him in many ways – driven and determined, but held back by a world that underestimates her just because of who she is. Steve finds it impossible not to like her.

It’s not the same with her as it was with Bucky, but it’s similar. Someone to share things with, good and bad, and who will fight in his corner. In some ways all it does is highlight the crucial piece of him that’s missing, but at the same time, it eases the hurt. So when the big day finally arrives, Peggy’s just as excited and nervous as Steve is.

If this works, it will change the tide of the war.

It’s Bucky Steve thinks of though, as they lock him in a chamber like a cold steel coffin. And it’s true, death is a possible consequence of pushing the boundaries of science like this. But the team are quietly confident, so Steve is as well. 

He holds back a scream when the needles pierce his skin. The serum burns through his veins like molten metal, but he holds on, because he has to. 

He imagines the look on Bucky’s face when Steve shows up to fight beside him. Disbelief and pride. Something more maybe…

Light blazes all around him, and this time Steve actually does scream, squeezing his eyes shut. The pain is unimaginable. Like every molecule of his being is getting torn apart and remade, burning until it becomes something entirely new, reborn from ashes. Infinity stretches before him, a gaping and insurmountable void, cold and dark. It’s like watching the world from a distance, too far from anything to ever find his way back. 

If this works, Steve swears he’s never going to let anything come between him and Bucky again. Not time, nor space, nor war. Wherever Bucky is, Steve will be. A shadow, a guiding light, anything— so long as they’re together.

The pressure in his head builds to a dizzying crescendo and he feels his consciousness slipping. Just before he gives in to it, he senses something – faint as an afterimage, familiar as his own skin. Warm, comforting, _home_. He reaches for it—

_“Quick get him out.”_

_A woman’s voice. “Is he—”_

_Hands on his arms and chest. “No, just unconscious.”_

_“What went wrong?”_

_“I don’t know, worry about that later. Erskine, get over here. Erskine— shit!”_

There’s a sound like a gunshot, then everything goes black.

Steve wakes up tucked into a comfortable bed, with soft blankets and pillows that feel like laying his head on a cloud. The room around him is bright and well appointed, more apartment than hospital.

A figure by his side stirs at his movement, uncurling from a chair and rising to stand beside him. For a moment he hopes it might be—

“Steve,” Peggy says, obvious relief in her voice. “How do you feel?”

Steve’s heart sinks.

“I um…” He tries to move but his limbs feel heavy and sore. Actually, all of him does. Like he’s been run over by a truck. It’s an effort of sheer willpower just to raise a hand in front of his face and examine it for changes. At first glance, it doesn’t _look_ any different. “I hurt,” he admits truthfully, setting it back on the blankets. “Did it work?”

The composure in Peggy’s expression falters. It’s not by much, but just enough for Steve to know the answer before she’s even spoken. “I’m afraid it would appear not.”

Her hand is warm on his, but he can’t stand the sympathy in her eyes. “Then we try again,” he insists. “You can do that, right? Because I’ll volunteer as many times as you need—”

Her lips press together and Steve falls silent. “It’s not that simple, Steve. Doctor Erskine... he’s— there was a turncoat in our ranks. We didn’t realise until it was too late.” What’s left of her resolve crumbles. “He’s gone, and any chance of recreating the serum with him.”

The enormity of that hits Steve square in the chest. “Then—”

“We still need to run some tests, once you’re feeling better, of course. But it seems like at this stage, Project Rebirth is a failure.”

That stings. He’s a failure. Again.

“Is there anything I can bring you?” Peggy asks kindly.

Steve turns his head, fixating on a painting on the wall. Some mundane countryside scene, with rolling fields and a bright red farmhouse. “No.”

“Well… do call for me if there’s anything you need,” Peggy says. “And Steve—”

He turns back to her and she pats his forearm sympathetically.

“Stiff upper lip. Don’t give up hope yet.”

It’s telling that her smile is as empty as her voice, though.

Steve tries to smile, but he’s certain it comes out false and half-hearted. “Sure.”

When Peggy’s gone, he’s left to deal with the reality of his own failure alone.

They run tests. Steve obliges without complaint – it’s his duty to be of use however he can, and if there’s any chance the procedure could still work, he wants to make sure it happens.

They test his strength, coordination, and reactions. Memory, reasoning, and learning ability. They even put him through basic training again in case the effects of the serum take time to develop. But finally, after several months with zero detectable change, even the great Howard Stark throws his hands in the air and declares himself stumped.

Project Rebirth is a non-starter.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but swallow it Steve must. He’s never been anything special before, so what’s changed? It gives him time to think, and maybe Bucky was right all along – Steve just needs to contribute to the war effort in his own way.

As the heat of summer slowly fades, giving way to piles of dead leaves that accumulate outside his apartment, Peggy sits down with him at the table in his kitchen to formally break the news. Her uniform is starched and crisp, hair falling in into perfectly coiled curls. She politely declines his offer of tea, folding her hands neatly in her lap. After all the time they’ve spent together these last few months, there’s no arguing that they’ve become friends. She’s being as professional about this as she can, but Steve’s certain having to do this hurts her as much as it does him.

“The project is officially cancelled,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

Steve nods. He’d already figured as much. It wasn’t easy, coming to terms with it, but now that he has, he’s just eager to get back home to New York and help the war effort however he can. “So when can I go home?” he asks.

Peggy purses her lips, like she’s preparing to do something she’s not going to enjoy. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible Steve.”

Stomach sinking unpleasantly, Steve frowns. “What do you mean?”

To Peggy’s credit, she meets his gaze, steady and unwavering. It’s that as much as anything else which brings Steve to the realisation he might have taken a chance he’s going to regret.

“Successful or not, you still have the recipe to a top-secret serum formula running in your veins. Even if the SSR can’t make something of it, we have a responsibility to national security to ensure no one else can either.”

Steve breathes deeply. Surely she doesn’t mean… “Pegs, what are you saying?”

Peggy looks down at her hands, fingers tightening around each other. “You can’t go home Steve.”

Outside the window, birds trill cheerfully. Steve stares at her, dumbfounded. “For how long?” he hears himself ask. “Until the war’s ended? Until HYDRA is defeated?”

But he’d known from the very first moment they met that Peggy was something special. Because beneath her easily underestimated exterior, she’s unbreakable. Bones of steel, the courage of a lioness, with the resolve and determination to always stay her course, no matter how difficult it might be. So he shouldn’t really be surprised by what she says next. 

“I wish I could give you the answer you want. But you have to understand Steve: there will always be someone after you. Humans are creatures of greed, and to those who wish ill on this nation and our allies, you stand out like a beacon. They will never let you rest, not while there’s the faintest hope of completing Erskine’s work.”

Steve feels himself tense up. “So I’m a prisoner.”

“You’re not a prisoner Steve. You’ll keep this apartment and be paid for your time. We’ll find something for you to do. Paperwork, intelligence reports maybe.”

“Oh, so I’ll be allowed to leave whenever I like, then?”

Peggy shakes her head. “That’s not what I said and you know it.”

Resentment bubbles up in Steve’s gut. “You never warned me.”

Peggy rises to stand, a little stiff. Only her eyes betray any unease. “You knew from the moment you signed the paperwork consenting to this experiment, that your life became the property of the SSR. We never hid that. This was always a foreseeable, if unfortunate, outcome.”

“Is that you or the Colonel speaking?”

Peggy’s tone is firm. “It’s your Government.”

Steve grips the arms of his chair hard enough to leave nail marks in the wood. If he were as strong as promised, he would shatter it. If only…

Peggy sighs. “Look Steve, if I had thought this would be the outcome, I would never have let you sign up. I am truly sorry, but this is how it has to be. I really hope you won’t hold that against us.”

He’s not sure if she means herself, or the SSR. Both maybe. Either way, it seems irrelevant. How can he _not_ resent a complete loss of his autonomy when he’s gained nothing in return?

After she’s gone, Steve stands, kicking the chair he was sitting in and immediately regretting it as pain shoots through his big toe. He slumps onto the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands. In spite of all his hopes, apparently this is how it ends – with him as little more than a kept SSR circus monkey.

It’s true what they say then – about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

The first month passes quicker than expected. It’s a strange life to lead – the SSR provides him with every comfort necessary, and as promised, Peggy finds office work for him to do too. It’s actually not as unpleasant as he thought it might be. But where it really counts, his life is not his own anymore. Guards are posted outside his door around the clock and they accompany him wherever he goes, which is limited to within the SSR facility anyway.

He is – for all intents and purposes – under house arrest. Facilitated the shadow of a life within the confines of a gilded cage.

It rankles, but there’s nothing Steve can do about it, other than anticipate Bucky’s eventual return from war. Which of course brings him straight back to the fact that they’ll never be able to live together again like they did, and the aching realisation that everything he truly valued in life is gone, all for a chance that didn’t pan out.

His days begin to blur together, and the only bright spot in them is the occasional arrival of letters from Bucky. They’re infrequent, and everything is censored, of course – Steve has no more idea where he is or what he’s doing, than he has of what’s going on back home in Brooklyn. Nonetheless he awaits their arrival eagerly, replying with a positivity unreflective of his circumstances, and urging Bucky to come home safe.

But one day in late fall, with a frigid chill just beginning to settle into the ground, Bucky’s letters stop.

The reason why only becomes clear when Peggy drops by one afternoon. The wind outside is blustery, whistling around the windows, and Steve’s had the radiator turned up all day, with an extra sweater on to compensate. It surprises him to see Peggy in person. Hard as it is to take, ever since she delivered him the news about his situation they’ve grown apart – what closeness they once had lapsing to an uneasy stalemate of opinion that makes continuing a friendship nigh on impossible.

So for her to be here now means whatever she has to say must be important.

She makes tea, placing a cup and saucer down on the table and insisting Steve sit before she’ll come out with whatever she’s here for. He lifts the cup to his mouth, sipping the hot liquid while he waits.

Peggy wrings her hands. “Steve, there’s no good way for me to tell you this…” her expression is pinched, eyes soft as they meet his own. “Your friend, Sergeant Barnes… His unit was captured two weeks ago in Azzano, Italy. Officially he was listed as missing in action, but since then Allied forces have recaptured the area. They found the remainder of the 107th – at least those still alive – in a HYDRA laboratory facility. Barnes’ fellow soldiers say he was one of the first to be taken. Apparently he volunteered himself to spare the others.”

Clammy fear washes over Steve in a nauseous wave. Peggy’s voice seems muffled, as though there’s cotton wool in his ears. “But—” he mumbles, tripping over a conflicting jumble of words and thoughts, “— they found him, right? He’s okay? He has to be okay…”

Across the table Peggy’s mouth pulls into a thin line. She reaches out, gently placing her hand on top of Steve’s. “According to the survivors we found, no one who went into those labs came out alive. Most were uh… _laid to rest_ … behind the facility. So far we’ve been unable to positively identify any of them as Sergeant Barnes, but every piece of circumstantial evidence we have points to his passing. I would have come earlier, but I know how much this means to you. I wanted to be sure.”

Then Bucky is— _gone_? Steve can’t even fathom it. A world without Bucky in it… How can he live? It’s like asking him to live with only half his heart, half his soul…

A ragged sob tears itself from his chest. The cup slips from his fingers, smashing into fragments on the saucer as the world lurches around him. He feels dizzy and untethered.

“Steve?”

Peggy’s mouth is forming words but Steve can no longer hear them. There’s something out there, calling to him from the same void he touched during the experiment. It feels like a thread that lights his way, leading somewhere warm, comforting, familiar. His vision swims, narrowing to focus on the worry in Peggy’s eyes as he reaches out, accepting the void—

Around him, the world shifts. Or maybe it’s Steve who shifts. Or maybe they’re just one and the same now, because for a moment, he can’t tell anymore where the world ends, and he begins. 

A hard floor rushes up to meet him and he lands on his hands and knees with a yelp. His chest feels tight like he’s having an asthma attack, breaths heavy and laboured as he struggles to get his bearings. It looks like he’s in a hotel room somewhere, but it’s unlike any he’s seen before – garish mustard yellow wallpaper, a striped bed cover that’s sole purpose seems to be to offend the eye, and some kind of strange decorative wood and glass box in one corner.

The unfamiliar clash of colours and design alone prove he’s definitely not where he came from anymore. He shivers. Wherever this is, it’s cold. Or— He glances down at himself, exclaiming with surprise. He’s as naked as the day he was born. What the hell happened?

A pair of feet appear in his line of vision. “Steve!” a voice exclaims happily.

But not just any voice. Steve’s head snaps up.

He’s died and gone to heaven, clearly. That’s the only explanation for this. Because right here in front of him, every bit as alive as Steve saw him the night he left New York, is Bucky.

Tears squeeze from Steve’s eyes. Heedless of his lack of clothing, he surges up from the floor and throws himself at Bucky, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s middle and burying his nose in an unfamiliar leather jacket that smells exactly like he remembers. “I thought I lost you,” he sobs raggedly. “Peggy— she said you died.”

A hand strokes through his hair. “Whoa there Steve, it’s okay. I’m here, I’ve got you.” Bucky pulls Steve closer, folding around him like a blanket, making quiet soothing noises.

Steve clutches at him, hanging on for dear life. If he lets go, this Bucky might just disappear too. “You were gone, Bucky. I— I lost you—" he grits out, teeth clenched.

But at the mention of his name, Bucky stiffens a little. “What did you call me?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” Steve sniffs, pulling back just enough to see his face and trying hopelessly to wipe the tears off his cheeks. “I called you Bucky. Same as usual.”

Bucky makes a noise of disagreement, eyes scanning across Steve’s tear-stained face with a slight frown. “My name isn’t Bucky,” he says firmly. “It’s James.”

Something awful sinks in the pit of Steve’s stomach. There’s no mistaking this man as anyone but Bucky. He’s got all the same features – same slight cleft in his chin, same deep shadows beneath his eyes, same spread of stubble over his cheeks, and same cocky spring to his step. But Bucky never liked being called James. If he doesn’t remember that, something is clearly very wrong. “Please Buck,” Steve says, “Quit playing around.”

Hands settle firmly onto Steve’s shoulders, and he jumps when he notices the left one for the first time. It’s made of metal plate from fingertip to shoulder, and engraved with a bright red star. Everything about it looks unnatural and lethal, and it sends a bolt of primal fear shooting through Steve.

He tears himself from Bucky’s grasp, backing away until he hits up against a wall. Who is this stranger who wears Bucky’s face? “Who— are you?” he stammers. “You’re not him, you can’t be, but—"

Hurt flashes across Bucky’s face, and it turns in Steve’s chest like a knife. Slowly, Bucky approaches him the same way you would a wild animal, hands held, palm open in the air. “Steve it’s okay, you know me. My name is James. We’re friends, have been for years.”

“No.” Steve says, inching away along the wall and Bucky freezes. “I don’t know anyone with an arm like that.”

“Yes, you do. Or at least, you will.” Bucky smiles wryly, like it’s amusing somehow. “I’m going to guess you’ve just come from a meeting with a woman named Peggy, in 1943?”

Steve blinks. He’s right, but how can that be? The look on his face must convey as much, because Bucky seems to take his silence for agreement.

He inches closer, gesturing at the room around them with an almost shy smile. “Welcome to 1971. I’ve been waiting _years_ to meet you for the first time. You kind of one-upped me on that count.” He takes in Steve’s blank face, and huffs a small laugh. “The serum they gave you… it changed you in a way no one expected. You’re a time traveller Steve.”

“I’m a— what?” Steve gapes at him.

“You travel through time.” Bucky finally edges close enough to settle a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve’s too shocked to even pull away this time. “You and I, we’re connected. I don’t know why, and neither do you. But you visit me like this a lot throughout both our lives. Apparently I look like an old friend of yours, from before the war.”

“Bucky…” Steve breathes.

“Yeah.” Bucky smiles.

Steve tries to get his head around this entire thing. If what Bucky’s saying is true, and he knows Steve, but not his own name, or their shared past, and this is the future, then—

A laboratory, Peggy said. The metal arm—

Steve feels sick.

There’s an amused chuckle though, Bucky through and through, and a hand nudges his side. “I wouldn’t think on it too hard, punk. You’ll do your head in.”

A warm feeling floods Steve’s chest that he couldn’t hold it back if he tried. There’s no one this could be _except_ for Bucky. Steve lets himself be dragged into a hug, wrapping his arms cautiously around Bucky’s waist and finally allowing himself to believe this might be true. “Oh yeah?” he contests, slipping seamlessly into old habits. “And what would you know about it, jerk?”

That earns him a true smile, and Bucky’s head lowers towards his, fingers slipping gently beneath his chin and tilting it upward. Something electric dances down Steve’s spine. No way…

“A hell of a lot more than you,” Bucky croons, eyes flickering down to Steve’s mouth and back in a way that leaves no doubt as to his desire.

Steve flushes, their close proximity and his distinct lack of clothing sending something molten hot straight to his belly. This isn’t the Bucky he knows. That Bucky never saw the way Steve looked at him, too busy chasing after girls and his own reputation. The metal arm might be a strange and unnatural addition, but this—

 _This_ Steve could get used to.

Bucky’s eyes search his in a way that sends a rough shiver through his body. “I know you’ve only just got here, but I’d really like to kiss you, if that’s okay? In my defence, future you _did_ say you’d be okay with it…”

Jesus – coping with the idea of future versions of himself aside – if there’s anything Steve has ever wanted more than to feel Bucky’s lips against his own, he sure as hell can’t think of it right now. He nods, quick and breathless, and Bucky closes the gap between them, brushing his lips against Steve’s in a lingering, featherlight kiss.

Steve melts against him, dizzy with the feel of it.

Maybe he really has died and gone to heaven. Or maybe, if what Bucky’s told him is true – Steve really has just made good on his threat to walk into Hell, cut a deal with the Devil, and offer up his immortal soul for the chance to have Bucky back. If so, it seems like a fair bargain.

But an hour later, Steve feels that strange tug pulling him away again.

“Don’t worry,” Bucky tells him with a smile. “You’ll be back soon enough.”

Somehow already, Steve would trust him to know.

He arrives back in 1943, although to not exactly the same geographical location he left from, which offers an unexpected opportunity.

The chance to run.

Peggy will be annoyed, but he figures she’ll understand. If she were in his position, she’d do the same. For the first time in his life, Steve finds himself weighing up the _right_ thing to do, against what he _wants_ to do, and finds himself choosing the latter.

Let the SSR chase if they want to. But one way or another, Steve is taking back his life. 


	5. Chapter 5

### 1956-1957

Warm afternoon light filters through the small window of the Soldier’s apartment, casting everything in golden tones.

“Hit me,” he says.

Steve’s vivid blue eyes capture and hold his gaze, steady and giving nothing away. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” the Soldier insists, frustrated by the question and just generally... frustrated.

Ever since Madripoor he and Steve have grown closer, more relaxed in each other’s company. But that doesn’t stop Steve from being a mouthy little shit. In fact sometimes, it only serves to highlight just how much he can be.

As though to prove it, Steve shrugs, picking a card up off the neat stack in the centre of the table and sliding it across to the Soldier.

The Soldier adds it to his hand. Nine of hearts. That makes… 23.

With a sharp noise of irritation he throws the cards down on the table.

Steve actually has the gall to smile. Like the Soldier couldn’t murder him for it. “You know, you don’t have to draw a card every time. You can stay,” he says, a touch smug.

The Soldier throws his chair back, finger aimed directly at Steve’s head. “That’s not the problem here Amerikanskiy, and you know it.”

“Isn’t it?” Steve asks, eyebrow raised in challenge. It’s as though he thinks the Soldier doesn’t know exactly what’s going on. 

The Soldier slams his fist on the table. “You’re cheating!”

Steve’s mouth does an uneven kind of wobbling thing the Soldier knows far too well now to think he’s taking this seriously. “Well hey pal, that’s a pretty big claim to make.”

“Not when you’ve won every round we’ve played the last hour.”

“So I’m lucky.”

“You’re a punk. No one’s lucky that much.”

The wobble devolves into a full on grin. “Maybe.”

Someone walks by the apartment door, loud stomping steps that silence both of them until they’ve retreated far down the hallway.

The Soldier lets out a breath. It would definitely be a lie to say he doesn’t enjoy Steve’s visits now, even when he is cheating at cards. He’s a bright spot in an otherwise dull and regimented existence. But they can’t afford to forget how dangerous this is for them both, either. One wrong move, or someone overhearing them in here…

Quieter but still argumentative, he scoots his chair forward again, leaning across the table and requisitioning Steve’s mug of coffee, half full, and sliding it out of reach. If Steve won’t give a straight answer, then perhaps blackmail will work. “How do you explain it, then?”

With a bemused noise that could pass for objection, but only when his easy expression isn’t also considered, Steve’s eyes follow the movement. The light from outside highlights his straw blond hair and draws attention to the faint smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks that the Soldier has to try very hard not to focus on. He’s realised recently he likes looking at Steve. Too much probably. There’s an odd sort of beauty to him, the kind that’s not immediately apparent at first glance. Like a painting by one of the great masters, where the longer you look, the more the intricate details become apparent.

“You know I don’t even like that stuff,” Steve points out, making no attempt to get his mug back. “Tastes terrible.”

The Soldier shrugs. “I suppose I’ll drink it then,” he says, feigning bringing it up to his mouth.

With a noise of objection, Steve reaches for it. The Soldier shifts it away again, feeling his face do that weird thing it’s started doing of late around Steve, the one where it kind of contorts up around his mouth and cheeks. “I thought you said you didn’t want it?”

The way the expression sits on his face might feel strange, but it’s worth it just for the reaction it garners from Steve. How it makes him smile, full mouth curving upward like a crescent moon.

“Maybe I changed my mind.”

The Soldier raises an eyebrow at him. “Well I suppose you can have it then…” He offers up the mug, but moves it playfully out of range again when Steve reaches for it. “If you tell me the secret to winning.”

Steve groans. He runs a hand through his hair, smile a little crooked. “All right, all right… I’m just good at math. I count the cards.”

The Soldier stares at him like he’s speaking a foreign language. Only that’s not quite right, because the Soldier can speak most common foreign languages fluently himself, and what Steve said still makes no sense.

As though sensing his confusion, Steve elaborates. “It’s a technique. You assign a value to each of the cards, and when they’re played, you keep a running tally of the value in the remaining deck. If it’s stacked with high cards, it’s favourable to the player. If it’s low, it’s favourable to the house. You play and bet accordingly.”

“So… you cheat.”

“It’s not entirely honest I suppose.”

“Where did you learn?” the Soldier asks, genuinely curious. So far in the time he’s known Steve, he doesn’t seem like the sort of person to live off of dishonesty. More like the opposite – he’s disgustingly honest and principled to a fault. So for him to know something like this seems out of character. 

Steve makes a face. “A little town called Las Vegas. There’s a lot of development there in the time I’m from. Gambling, girls, drink, gangs. Sin City, it’s the next big thing by all accounts.”

The Soldiers nods. He knows it. “I once— uh, I once had a job there,” he offers. It was one of his first. He recalls the city itself as a curiosity. An impossibly American monument to capitalism, rising improbably from the vast wasteland of the desert. The road they called ‘The Strip’ was fresh and new, a glittering beacon of debauchery for the rich and famous.

Which of course, also made them conveniently easy targets.

Steve gives him a look like he knows the Soldier was about to say he killed someone there. Of course Steve’s under no illusions about the nature of his work. He’s seen many of the Soldier’s missions first-hand. He doesn’t like it, but as he points out – with that curious belief of his in a predetermined future – there’s no changing it, because it’s already happened. 

The Soldier doesn’t agree. As far as he’s concerned, _his_ future at least, is his own.

Between that and the fact they’re on opposite sides of a war that’s getting more frigid by the second, he and Steve really shouldn’t get along as well as they do. Yet somehow, ideological differences and state politics all seem to shrink in importance in the face of whatever this connection is between them.

“I guess neither of us is that straight-up, huh,” Steve remarks, non-judgemental.

The Soldier hums agreement. “What are you doing in Las Vegas?” he asks.

“I live there… for now.”

“Why Las Vegas? It’s the middle of the desert.”

Steve considers the question, head slanted thoughtfully to one side. “It’s a town for people with something to win, or something to lose.”

“And which are you?”

Steve eyes him steadily, and the Soldier’s pretty sure he knows what the answer is. For the umpteenth time he wonders at the past— _present_ — that Steve won’t tell him about.

“So… are you gonna give me my coffee back?” Steve asks.

The Soldier obligingly places it down on the table and Steve picks it up, sipping delicately. “Friends don’t steal friends’ coffee you know,” he remarks, watching the Soldier over the top of the mug with eyes that sparkle mischievously.

It should be nothing – just a passing comment like any other. Yet for some reason it gives the Soldier butterflies low in his stomach.

“Friends don’t cheat to beat friends at card games,” he retorts.

Steve smiles, ducking his head like there’s something to hide. “Suppose I’ll have to stop then. Or…” he says, glancing up hopefully, “I could just teach you how to do it?”

The Soldier’s face does that strange unintentional contortion thing again. He does enjoy learning new skills, and there’s never any telling when they might come in handy. Though something tells him that’s not the only reason he accepts.

“A friend would definitely teach a friend how to cheat at blackjack,” he says.

Steve smiles. “Yeah,” he agrees, a little breathier than the statement deserves. “A friend definitely would.”

So it’s agreed then. They’re friends.

But caring about someone comes with its own unique downsides – like the way that the Soldier finds himself worrying about Steve, and how he looks increasingly sad every time he shows up and learns the date.

It’s something they’ve taken to sharing between each other out of habit. Steve will tell the Soldier when he’s from, and the Soldier will tell him when he’s travelled to. Steve still won’t share any details of his life in the past, or what the future holds in store for them, other than to confirm he’s been there. ‘The future has to unfold of its own accord’ he’s fond of saying. Or some bullshit like that.

But as of late, whenever he learns it’s been nearly a year since their first meeting, it puts a real damper on his mood. It’s enough to make the Soldier suspicious. He’s good at reading people – has to be in his line of work – and he can tell when someone’s hiding something from him.

Steve’s not even good at hiding either. It’s written all over his face – plain as day in the sentimental tilt of his mouth, and doleful eyes that follow the Soldier’s every move.

And since it happens consistently, no matter how old Steve is, there’s obviously a reason. Something happens between them – the Soldier’s sure of it – and Steve knows what, even if he’s choosing not to share.

“What are you thinking about?” Steve asks him one day around a mouthful of rye bread, meat, and pickles.

He always hungry when he’s travelled, disproportionate to his size, and the Soldier tries to have food on hand for him. He reaches across the table for the pickles and Steve helpfully pushes them closer.

The Soldier knows he’s not going to like being asked about this. But it’s important, so he’s just going to have to deal with it. “I’m trying to figure out why being around me makes you sad,” he says bluntly.

Steve chokes a little on his food, dropping the slice of bread back onto his plate. “I— I’m not _sad_ — what makes you say that?”

The Soldier watches him calmly, depositing a spoonful of pickles onto his own bread. There’s no denying this, no matter what Steve says. It’s merely an observation. An irrefutable fact. “You always look at me like you’re sad these days, and it’s getting worse every time you’re here.”

Steve’s mouth pulls up unhappily. He pushes the bread across his plate, then back again.

Apparently the Soldier’s not wrong then. There’s definitely something to be learnt here, and he’s got a hunch where to start asking. “You know when you came to visit me the second time, in Russia?” he says, watching as Steve swallows roughly. “You said you’d been here before. And you were going to say something else too after that, but you stopped.”

Steve stiffens, hand frozen at the edge of his plate.

The Soldier takes a bite of his bread and pickles, leaving Steve to stew over it as he slowly chews. “What were you going to say?” he asks.

“Oh… you know,” Steve says, waving a hand and smiling easily the most fake smile the Soldier has ever seen on his face. “Nothing important.” 

But the Soldier isn’t so easily deterred. “What aren’t you telling me? Something happens, doesn’t it?”

Steve juts out his chin, unmistakably defiant, and the Soldier knows for sure he’s hiding something.

He slides a hand across the table, fingers creeping closer to Steve’s until their tips are just touching, pressed lightly together. Physical contact like this between them is still tentative and uncertain, yet for some reason, they both seem to find themselves seeking it out. “It’s bad isn’t it? That’s why you won’t tell me.”

The resolve to Steve’s expression wavers a little as his eyes fixate on their touching hands. “Telling you won’t change anything,” he says, firm, yet uncertain too.

“You don’t know that.”

Steve shakes his head forcefully. “It won’t. The future, or this part of it anyway, it’s already happened. There’s nothing either of us can do to change it.”

“And you know this how?” the Soldier asks, irritated by his constant dogged insistence on this one irrefutable principle. Predetermination.

“Because I’ve already been there. And I’ve been to the past and tried to change things. It doesn’t work. Being there… it’s like watching a movie. You see everything unfold, but you can’t do a damn thing to change it.”

“Well maybe if you tell me, we _can_.”

Steve sighs like the debate is physically hurting him. He closes his eyes, turning his hand palm-up, and inching it forward until the Soldier’s fingers rest in the centre of it like an unspoken request. “You can’t. And telling you would only make things worse. It’s best you don’t know… You said so yourself. It’ll make things… easier.”

The irritation the Soldier feels at his future self returns with a vengeance, niggling like an itch beneath his skin. It seems he won’t be able to pry this information out of Steve, even with a crowbar. Or under threat of death. In typical Steve fashion, he’s convinced himself that the Soldier not knowing is the right thing for both of them, and there’s nothing the Soldier can say that will change his mind.

He huffs annoyance, gently tracing the lines of Steve’s palm. His life line with its curious split mid-way. The delicate horizontal fold that sweeps across the soft skin below his fingers. “You said you’ve been to the future…”

Steve nods.

“Then we still see each other, after whatever happens?”

Another nod. “We do.”

The Soldier curls their fingers into each other, squeezing Steve’s gently. “Then everything will be okay.”

Steve smiles, noticeably a little too pinched around the edges to be truly genuine. But he squeezes back regardless. “Yeah. It will be.”

For once, it’s the Soldier who wants to believe him. 

“Where are we this time?” Steve asks as soon as he’s done dressing.

The Soldier watches him from the edge of the bed he’s seated on, complete with its ridiculously frilly floral cover. Frilly, floral, and pastel seem to be a running theme with this room; this building even, run down and decrepit as it is. “Paris,” he says.

Steve’s blue-green eyes positively glow. “Paris?” he squeaks, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. He dashes over to the window like an excitable child, eyes widening at the view.

The Soldier can’t help but smile at that. It turns out smiling is what his face has been doing whenever Steve’s around. Kind of like it was something he’d forgotten and just had to re-learn.

There’s really not that much to see out the window, just typical tiled Parisian rooftops with large bay windows, wrought iron balconies, and terracotta chimneys. But the way Steve looks – open mouthed with wonder like he’s been presented an early Christmas present – it might as well be the Eiffel Tower and Champs-Élysées.

He spins to face the Soldier again, small frame fairly vibrating with excitement. “Can we go out there? Please? I’ve always wanted to see Paris.”

There _are_ things the Soldier should be doing of course – mission related tasks of vital importance, like recon of the neighbourhood he’ll be operating in two days from now. He’s not here to be a tourist. But the look on Steve’s face tugs at his chest, making it impossible to say no. He likes seeing Steve happy, and so often he isn’t anymore, not really. Whether it’s the time he’s travelled from, or the future yet to come, the Soldier doesn’t know. Maybe it’s just that this Steve is too young for either to really matter yet. Regardless, the Soldier is happy to make the most of it while it lasts. One evening surely can’t hurt.

“All right punk,” he agrees. “But don’t you go disappearing on me out there okay?”

Steve makes a face, a sort of half squint, scrunching his nose up as he thinks it over. “I can’t make any promises…”

The Soldier rolls his eyes. “I know.” He pushes up off the bed and makes his way over to his bag, searching through it for something appropriately casual to wear.

“I have a good feeling though,” Steve says, still beaming so hard the Soldier swears he can almost feel it on his back.

“The last time you had a good feeling you dropped a mug of coffee in the middle of my floor as you disappeared,” he observes wryly.

“Oh,” Steve scratches his head, looking only mildly put out.

His reaction suggests the Steve on that occasion was older, and this one doesn’t yet have the memory of that incident. It’s funny how every Steve is still the same in the ways that count, though. Stubborn and principled, optimistic to a fault, and unwavering in his belief of the fundamental goodness of people. All qualities the Soldier doesn’t understand, no matter how much he tries.

“So, can we go?” Steve asks again eagerly.

The Soldier digs around the bottom of his bag, withdrawing a crumpled grey sports coat and slacks. He smooths out the wrinkles as best as he can – he wasn’t intending to use these, so they’re not ironed like they should be. But on a beautiful late-spring day amidst the crowds of Paris, he doubts anyone will spare them so much as a second glance.

“Yeah, we’ll go,” he says, gesturing that Steve should turn around while he changes.

Mouth curving into a small smile, Steve’s eyes linger on the Soldier longer than they should before he complies, turning back to the view outside the window. Even so, as the Soldier pulls on a shirt and buttons it up his chest, he can still see Steve sneaking glances when he thinks he isn’t being watched. It kindles something hot and excited low in the Soldier’s belly. The next time Steve does it, the Soldier meets his gaze like a challenge, purposefully running a hand through his hair and watching the way Steve’s lips curve up around the edges. Little shit. He _knows_ the Soldier knows and he’s still doing it anyway. And despite that, the Soldier’s still playing the game too. Like neither of them will acknowledge it’s actually happening.

He finishes dressing and Steve turns around innocently like he hasn’t been watching the whole time. His eyes trail up and down the ensemble, and the effect of it is less about what his expression says, than what it doesn’t. It’s perfectly composed, but the intensity in his eyes betrays him. The unfamiliar heat in the Soldier’s stomach spreads higher. This feeling… It makes him want to…

Cheeks burning hot, he glances down at the floor, breaking the tension between them. He doesn’t know what it means, or how it relates to the strange floaty feeling that’s been settling beneath his ribcage more and more often recently when Steve’s around, but it doesn’t feel like something they can stop. More like a force of nature they’re powerless to resist.

“Come on then,” he says, dragging Steve out the door before they end up giving in and finding out exactly what nature wants of them.

They emerge onto the cobbled streets of Montmartre, into dazzling blue skies and sunlight. Everywhere they look there are people out enjoying it. Old men smoking outside a tearoom. Young couples holding hands and smiling secretively at each other. Young children skipping down the street beside parents. A baker peddling loaves bread from a cart. A crowd gathered outside a pâtisserie, admiring the colourful and intricate wares on display behind a window with beautiful flowing script.

It’s vivid, noisy, fragrant, and full of life. The Soldier feels a pang of guilt.

These are the same people whose lives he will risk during his mission two days from now. ‘Acceptable collateral damage’ his handlers call it. It feels wrong to pass himself off as a regular person like this – not the lethal tool he knows himself to be. It’s something he never questioned when he first started in this line of work. They merely told him what he was doing was right, for the good of his country, and he accepted that blindly. It’s only since Steve showed up that he’s begun to question the greater morality behind it.

Steve makes him question a lot of things…

He moves through the streets with a spring in his step, head turning at every little thing as he smiles and laughs, and points it all out to the Soldier, whose usefulness feels limited to providing translations when required.

They wander the narrow streets and alleys, passing boulangeries, flower sellers, artists. Steve stops frequently to take it all in, particularly admiring the shop with colourful oil canvases of the Paris skyline, and the wizened old man who draws people’s caricatures on the spot for a few francs. After Steve begs and pleads, the Soldier relents, handing over a few coins.

The resulting picture speaks volumes. In it, a grouchy-looking Soldier stands, arms crossed, staring down at a small golden haired man, who’s beaming back at him like the Soldier has just offered him the world.

Paris in spring might be beautiful, but Steve outshines it like the moon in a sky full of stars.

He’s at home here – from his casual artist’s shirt and suspenders, to his carefree attitude. A free spirit in the bohemian capital of the world.

They pass what’s left of the afternoon soaking up the atmosphere, trying out everything the neighbourhood has to offer – sticky lemon sugar crêpes, streets lined with soft perfumed blossoms, and even an entire bag of colourful macarons that Steve shouldn’t be able to make disappear, but somehow does. 

As night falls, they retreat to a small, smoky, hole in the wall restaurant, sharing bowls of onion soup, crusty baguettes, and easy conversation, late into the night. The Soldier drinks local wine, though Steve refuses. It destabilises his condition he explains, making it more likely he’ll travel. Cheeks blushing pink, he ducks his head, mumbling something to the tablecloth about how he doesn’t want that to happen, because he’s really enjoying the company tonight.

Maybe it would be easier to follow if the Soldier hadn’t had that last glass of wine.

Or the five before that.

Either way, his cheeks definitely feel too warm when Steve finally lifts his head, eyes meeting his. The intensity from before is back, but now it’s joined now by something new, hungry almost, that the Soldier’s body responds to on instinct, sending butterflies to his stomach, and heat flooding lower.

Steve’s lips part slightly, and the Soldier stares at them, finding himself worrying his own bottom lip too, trying not to think about the way Steve was looking at him this afternoon while he was dressing. Or the way he’s looking now.

He sips his wine again to distract himself, swirling it around the glass, hyper aware of Steve’s attention. The foot that gently nudges his under the table.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Steve asks, a little too thickly.

It looks like he’s struggling with this as much as the Soldier is. Whatever _this_ is.

“Yes,” the Soldier says, the too-fast answer betraying him.

Cold night air seems like exactly what they need right now. The Soldier throws some money down on the table, quickly following Steve out the door.

But despite the late hour, the air isn’t cold. More like tepid, which does nothing to cool the heat burning beneath his skin. Or the way it sparks up every time Steve gets close. Which is… often. 

“Where do you want to go?” the Soldier asks, leaning against the wall of the restaurant to put some space between them.

A few people pass by, but the streets are mostly empty now – just cats, rats, and other creatures of the night. Steve turns his head, looking up the hill. “It would be nice to see the lights of Paris from Sacré-Cœur,” he says wistfully. “But I’m not sure I can get up there without having an asthma attack.”

Maybe if the Soldier hadn’t drunk quite so much, it wouldn’t sound like as much of a challenge as it does. But the way his brain sees it, it’s not like he hasn’t given Steve a piggyback ride before. He grins a crazy kind of grin he can’t pinpoint the source of, and crouches down. “Get on.”

Steve makes a small noise of surprise. “What?”

“You wanna see the lights from Sacré-Cœur, that’s where we’re going.”

“You’re joking, right?”

The Soldier shoots him a hard look. “Steven Grant Rogers, I am absolutely not. You either climb on, or I’ll sling you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. But one way or another, you’re going to the top of that hill.”

Steve giggles. “You wouldn’t.”

Sick of waiting, the Soldier spins, lifting Steve into his arms, and striding purposefully up the street. Steve wriggles in his grip, but the ongoing breathy laughter in the Soldier’s ear banishes any suggestion of real objection. Halfway up though they do swap, Steve climbing onto the Soldier’s back to make life easier for them both. It’s nice having him there, skinny arms and legs wrapped around the Soldier, lean little frame pressed warmly against his back. At one point, it even feels like Steve’s nose nuzzles between his shoulder blades, the gentle puff of air through the Soldier’s jacket giving him away.

When they finally reach the summit, it’s with regret that the Soldier deposits Steve back on his feet. They stand at the top of the wide, sweeping staircase that leads downhill from the domed Basilica, the church looming, dramatically above them. But that’s not what really captures Steve’s attention. He lets out a small gasp, expression rapturous as he gazes at the city lights, spread beneath them like a blanket of fireflies. “Wow,” he breathes.

It is pretty, the Soldier has to admit. But it’s less the view, and more Steve’s reaction to it, that has him feeling warm and fuzzy inside. When the initial excitement finally wears off, they sit side by side on the steps, Steve slowly edging closer until he’s pressed against the Soldier, shoulder to thigh. It’s comfortable being together like this. All too easy to lose track of time as the noises of a sleeping city rise around them, muffled and indistinct.

Without warning, slender fingers slip between the Soldier’s, the skin on skin contact sending something thrilling and electric through his veins. He looks up to find Steve, face partially shadowed, gazing at him with the same hungry look as before.

And God… the Soldier wants to act on it.

“Thank you for this… for tonight,” Steve whispers, squeezing his hand. “It was beautiful.”

A familiar heaviness settles in the Soldier’s stomach. “You’re going,” he guesses.

The wryness to Steve’s smile speaks volumes. “I wish I weren’t,” he says, raising his other hand to cup Soldier’s cheek, achingly tender. “But before I do, I have to tell you something.” He pauses, a familiar troubled expression coming over him for the first time tonight, like he’s struggling to find the right words. 

Making a soft noise of encouragement, the Soldier leans into his touch. 

A thumb strokes across his cheek and jaw then, unbelievably gentle. “You’re not going to see me again for a little while.” Steve says, swallowing roughly. “I’ll be gone for… years your time, even if it’s only weeks for me.” His voice cracks a little. “But I want you to know I _will_ come back. That I’m with you, to the end of the line.”

A pained noise slips past the Soldier’s lips. It seems wildly unfair, after the night they’ve just had, that the universe would do this. He tightens his grip on Steve’s hand, struggling to articulate what this means to him. Because he doesn’t really know yet. They haven’t had the chance to find out. “Please… don’t go.”

Steve looks like he might cry. “I have to,” he whispers, hanging his head.

A feeling of dread creeps icy cold fingers up the Soldier’s spine. “This is when it happens, isn’t it? The thing you said happens to me?”

Lips pinched, Steve nods. A light breeze ruffles his hair. Somehow, impossibly, he squares his small shoulders, and looks up again. The defiance in his eyes is back, shining bright like the city behind him. “But before I go, I want to give you something… To help you get through it.”

“What?” the Soldier asks glumly. There’s nothing he can imagine Steve giving him to make up for the news he’s just delivered.

The hand on his cheek slides down to the nape of his neck, tangling in his hair and pulling him closer. “This,” Steve murmurs, pressing his lips against the Soldier’s.

And God, it’s _amazing_ … Steve kisses like he means it – with lips, tongue, and whole body pressed close. He tastes sweet and tart, just like the lemon sugar crêpes they shared that afternoon. With a low desperate noise, the Soldier pulls him closer. _This_ . This is what the hunger means, and he _wants_ it. Wants Steve like this, and so much more...

But Steve pulls away, stroking gentle fingers over the Soldier’s brow. He gives a small lopsided smile, more wry than humorous. “I know I didn’t ask, but in my defence, future you did say you’d be okay with it.”

The Soldier makes an enthusiastic noise of assent, gripping Steve’s hands tighter, as though by doing so he might be able to keep him here. But the weight of Steve’s touch on his cheeks lessens, and with a heavy heart the Soldier knows no amount of strength can prevent the inevitable.

“See you pal,” Steve whispers as he disappears.

He leaves a murmur on the breeze, a vague impression of warmth on the Soldier’s skin. A ghostly imprint on the night.

In the ensuing silence, the Soldier wonders just how much more Steve knows, but isn’t telling. What is the event yet to come, that separates them? And is this newfound thing between them merely a self-fulfilling prophecy, bound to come true no matter what? Like waves wearing away a cliff face, an inevitable force of nature.

Because the way Steve tells it, everything that will happen between them is already set in stone.

For his part, the Soldier would prefer to believe they choose it of their own free will. Not because it was destined to happen, but because it was what they _wanted_.

After the kiss, he dreams.

_Red brick and humble streets, cheerful laughter echoing off the walls. Legs dangling off a pier into cool water. Ice cream and sand and sick, next to a shimmering blue sea. Skyscrapers that tower over a rectangle of green. It means something… if only he could recall…_

_So close and so far. Familiar yet distant._

_Red, white, and blue. Blue-green eyes. Green park beside the avenues._

_Hands that cradle him by the shoulders. I need you to remember this Buck. It’s important. You have to trust in people…_

He wakes, tears on his cheeks, homesick for a place he can’t recall, with a terrible aching in his chest for Steve.

The Soldier’s barely wiped the blood from the Paris mission off his hands before he finds himself in Comrade Karpov’s office again. A fluorescent light above his desk flickers erratically, off and on, until even the shadows on Karpov’s face seem to have shadows. 

“You disobeyed orders,” Karpov says blandly, a mere statement of fact. He looks almost disinterested. Almost. “Again.”

The Soldier stands stiffly. “Yes,” he confirms. And he won’t apologise for it either. His method had been… cleaner. Less collateral damage.

“Why?” Karpov asks, folding his hands on the desk. To an average observer it might appear nonchalant, relaxed even. But the Soldier sees the lines of tension in his body, hears the sharp undertone to his voice that promises swift payback if the answer is unsatisfactory.

“I didn’t believe it was necessary. I was able to eliminate the targets without endangering others.”

Karpov hums, eyebrows arching in interest. “And you felt justified in doing that? Even though you knew it went against a direct command?”

“I know my job, Comrade General. The mission was a success.”

Karpov’s face contorts viciously as he all but hisses. “On the contrary Soldat, several of the people you spared saw you. Our colleagues in the Western intelligence community are now aware of your existence. This is _unacceptable_.”

The Soldier swallows. Such a consequence was unintentional of course, and unforeseen. But ever since he met Steve, he’s found himself questioning the morality of his work more and more. Steve makes him want to be better. To live up to this name he’s been given, to be Steve’s ‘James’. And killing innocent people doesn’t feel like something ‘James’ would do. Not if he had a choice.

Sure, Steve himself would probably say there’s no way around what the Soldier has to do now, that it’s just the way things are – but then of course he would. Him and his damn predetermined future. 

The Soldier rejects it. He _can_ be better, starting now.

With a swift movement, Karpov presses a button on his desk. Several men built like tanks enter the room, crossing their arms in a totally non-threatening, yet entirely threatening manner.

Somewhere in the Soldier’s head, warning bells begin to go off.

Rising from his chair, Karpov’s expression hardens. He sizes up the Soldier as though reading his mind. “In this organisation, we do not worry about collateral. Nor do we labour morality. We are nothing more than tools… merely an extension of the will of the state, as the animal is to the farmer.” His lips pull tight, turning down at the edges. “Do you know what happens to tools which no longer serve their purpose, Soldat?”

The men behind the Soldier shift a step closer. He swallows, mouth dry, sensing the charged electric atmosphere and anticipating the fight to come. “They get ah— reconditioned?” he asks, trying to buy time.

Perhaps this will be the defining moment where he diverges from Steve’s version of the future to forge his own.

Perhaps—

Karpov chuckles, head tipping with a barely perceptible movement. Something hits the Soldier’s neck, coursing through him with a sizzling searing pain. It freezes his limbs and leaves him immobile, vision rapidly dimming to the world around him.

_Fuck. He’s an idiot. Karpov was never going to give him a chance._

Karpov smiles, vicious and wickedly sharp. “They get put to sleep.”


	6. Chapter 6

### 1943 - 1952

Life on the run isn’t all that bad at first. It’s a lot easier than Steve expected, anyway.

With the war still going on, neither the SSR nor HYDRA seem to have the time nor resources to hunt down one man. Instead, he guesses, they’ve reached some sort of implicit agreement that the war won’t be won by possessing the formula for a failed super-soldier serum, and decided to concentrate their energies elsewhere.

Whatever the reasoning, it’s good for Steve. He flees west from New York, deliberately steering clear of civilization where possible and sticking to the backroads. It’s urgent at first, one eye forever cast over his shoulder in fear of pursuit. But as time passes with no indication he’s being followed, he starts to let himself relax just a little.

By day he hitchhikes. By night he sleeps rough, sneaking into deserted barns or any other shelter he can find. Along the way, he accepts casual work when it’s offered, never lingering too long in one place, or sharing his real name. If people wonder at his circumstances, they seem not to judge, sharing what little they have and accepting his credentials at face value. “It ain’t our place to ask,” one man tells him after a hard day’s work on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. “A man’s secrets are his own.”

Steve’s pretty sure the man saw him travel though. He moves on, fleeing like a ghost in the night. 

New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee. Even as far south as Alabama.

But as the months pass without any visible sign of a chase, he begins to loiter longer, taking the chance on stability, a real bed, and a hot meal. Within the year, he’s growing tired of even that. Between the constant relocation and his affliction, it feels like he’s never truly grounded, existing in some sort of dreamlike twilight zone on the edge of reality.

As nice as it is to finally see the country, Steve’s not someone who can exist unanchored. He has to have a home – somewhere to come back to. A place he belongs. 

It was always meant to be New York. But with his status as a wanted fugitive, that’s out of the question now. Sometimes he thinks it could be a who, not a where; but there’s only so much time he can spend living in the future with Bucky.

All of which is why, when he finally reaches a small town in rural Indiana where a no-nonsense family offers him work as a general store assistant, he decides to take the risk and settle down. Passing himself off as Grant, an out of work artist from New Jersey, he makes a life for himself there, boarding in a rundown cabin at a farm on the outskirts of the town.

It’s not much, but it is _his_. Every day he bikes to work, stopping to wave at the people he passes on the way. Coming home, he repeats the same exercise in reverse. People always wave back. It’s a typical small town, where everyone knows everyone else, and all the mundane details of their lives.

It makes it hard to keep a secret. But the benefit is, if anyone new comes into town, Steve will be the first to know about it.

It’s an honest, if not exactly glamorous, existence.

Stability is a double edged sword though. It helps with his condition, lessening the frequency of his travel and allowing him to write off the odd missed hour or two without too much question. But the downside is seeing less of Bucky.

The times he does travel it’s bittersweet, hurting almost as much as it helps to see what his best friend has become.

It’s hard too, to deal with the consequences of travelling. Because when you turn up God-knows-where, stark naked, without a penny to your name, you get pretty good at the less law-abiding aspects of life. How to lie, steal, and pickpocket. How to hotwire cars and pick locks – both skills wheedled out of Bucky early in Steve’s travelling career. How to run, hide, and keep yourself alive when you turn up on a rural roadside in the middle of an Indiana winter. Steve loses track of how many people’s clothes he’s had to ‘borrow’ when he arrives back in an inconvenient place that isn’t quite the same one he started from.

Which is most of the time, unfortunately.

It’s never too far, generally a few miles at most, but far enough he can’t just pick up the clothes he left behind and carry on. The dishonesty of it all doesn’t sit right with his moral compass either. His Ma always brought him up to be honest to a fault and never take advantage of others’ goodwill. Ultimately though, it’s not like he has a choice. 

Especially when he doesn’t travel to Bucky.

Sometimes it’s his own past that calls to him the strongest, dragging him into specific moments that repeat over and over, like immovable pegs in the ground that trip him up every time he tries to pass by.

Like the day of Sarah Rogers’ passing.

It’s here Steve first learns the irrefutable principle of his particular brand of time travel – that everything which has ever, or will ever happen in his life, has already come to pass for some version of himself. It is therefore pointless to fight the inevitable.

He recognises the day for its overcast skies and the abnormally cold wind that whips fitfully through the streets, worrying at coats and scarves. One stolen set of clothes and a dash across the borough later, and he finds himself standing outside his old brick tenement, gazing up the third-story window behind which he knows Sarah Rogers is about to draw her final breaths.

There’s an almost overwhelming desire to see her one last time. To tell her what she means to him. He _can’t_ though, because he’s already there, at her side, gripping her gaunt hand as the last of the life remaining in her chest rattles cruelly to a close.

It’s what they always say in those science fiction novels Bucky used to be so fond of – if you time travel, you can never let your past self see your present self, because the two of you being in the same place at the same time would cause some sort of impossible paradox that destabilises the fabric of the universe.

Or something like that, anyway.

Normally, Steve would be far too responsible to go about risking the world’s collective safety on a selfish whim. Problem is, that’s his Ma up there, and when it comes to people he cares about, logic has never really factored into the equation.

He takes a deep breath and walks toward the building threshold, hands tucked in his pockets against the cold. The universe can just deal with it. He’s not passing up the opportunity to see her one last time for anything.

Without warning though, a hand catches his arm, halting him in his tracks with an unnervingly firm grip. Steve lets out a cry of alarm, twisting his head to see its owner.

“Shhh,” a familiar voice commands, tugging him back into the narrow dirty gap between buildings. The assailant flicks a newspaper closed with his free hand, uncannily vivid blue eyes staring at Steve from beneath a ridiculous bowler hat that clearly doesn’t belong to him. “You can’t see her,” he says. 

Dead-set as he is on arguing, it takes Steve a good few moments before recognition sets in. When it does, a surge of adrenaline courses through his body. “N— Not possible,” he stutters, eyes wide.

The other man just laughs, finally releasing his grip on Steve’s forearm. “Oh it’s very possible. Quite common actually.”

“But… how?” Steve demands. “Isn’t it a paradox for us to both be here?”

Future Steve – because he must be from the future, Steve reasons, since he doesn’t remember having ever met himself before – just shrugs. “Apparently not. I’ve met myself so many times I’ve lost count, and the world hasn’t ended yet.”

Steve considers the idea. It’s… unexpected. 

There are questions he _could_ ask. About Bucky. About his own future. But… he’s also on a timeline. If he wants to see his Ma before it’s too late, he doesn’t have time to waste chatting. Not even with himself.

“Aren’t you going to go up and see her?” he asks future-Steve, tilting his head toward the apartment.

His other self looks at him like he’s an imbecile. “Do _you_ remember seeing yourself before you participated in the experiment?”

“No,” Steve says, wondering what the point of his question is.

Future-Steve looks vindicated. “Exactly. Can’t be done.”

“Seeing myself, or seeing her?”

“Both. The you and her from this day are both in the past, and you can’t change what’s already happened.”

His statement sounds a lot like a challenge to Steve. “But this is _my_ present now,” he argues. “There’s nothing to stop me just walking right in there.”

The brisk breeze whips the collected trash in their alcove into a crazy skittering dance. Older Steve sighs impatiently. He looks tired, deep shadows lurking beneath his eyes, and the faded remnants of a bruise on one side of his jaw. Steve wonders what it’s from.

“It’s like this,” the other him offers. “This day is part of your present self’s past. You remember exactly how it went, from the final rites with the priest, to the moment she took her last breath. For the you who’s with me now, all of this has already happened, and neither of us were a part of it. So you can’t change it.”

Steve stares blankly, struggling to process the explanation. It feels like trying to unravel a very tangled ball of string. 

“Sorry,” future-him adds as an afterthought, not sounding very sorry at all.

There’s a jaded quality to him, that, combined with his knowledge about the mechanics of their travel, makes Steve wonder exactly what he’s seen. “You make it sound like you’ve tried this before.”

“Many times,” Steve’s older self says with an unmistakable hint of resentment. “I mean—” he gestures flippantly, “feel free to try it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

It _is_ logical, and he may well be right. But the problem is, Steve doesn’t _want_ to listen. The chance to see his Ma again isn’t something he can refuse, and the longer he stays, the faster it’s slipping through his fingers. He stares at his other self a second, judging whether he’ll try to stop Steve if he bolts right back out of this alley and up the tenement stairs.

His older self just snorts, rolling his eyes like he knows exactly what’s running through Steve’s mind. Which of course, he must. He’s _been_ him. “Look,” he says, slightly more kind, hand settling over Steve’s shoulder in an oddly paternal manner. “I know you’re going to try it no matter what I say, and I also know you’re going to fail. So let me give you a piece of advice. Forget trying to change things okay? Just live in the now and enjoy it while you can.”

He takes what should be a positive sentiment and makes it sound strangely ominous. “But…” Steve says, searching for an argument against his fatalism. “Even if I can’t change the past, that doesn’t mean I can’t change the future, right?” Because he hates to think of Bucky, isolated, alone and taken advantage of, for years to come. If there’s any way to change that, Steve owes it to him to try. 

The other Steve does look briefly sympathetic to that, though no more hopeful. “I forget how young you are now,” he says almost wistfully. “You still haven’t travelled more than a couple of decades yet.”

“Decades?” Steve asks in disbelief. Decades have seemed like far enough. They take him to an impossibly science-fiction world where humans have set foot on the Moon, Communism is the new Fascism, and the Brooklyn Dodgers reside in Los Angeles instead of their home borough.

“Think of your life as a continuous piece of string,” older-Steve explains. “You can move freely back and forward to any point along it, but some points will always draw you in more than others. Things you regret, or wish you could change, or that hold significant meaning – like today. Then somewhere along the line, your string got all tangled up with Bucky’s, so now you travel to him the same way. Anywhere your respective strings intersect.”

Steve frowns. “I don’t see how that changes anything though… If I haven’t been there yet, then my actions are my own. They’re not predetermined,” he insists, unwaveringly stubborn.

The other Steve gives him a wry smile. “Come back and tell me that after you’ve seen Bucky in the next century.”

Steve feels a cold shiver run down his spine, completely unrelated to the weather. “What?”

“You heard me. He’s alive well into the 21st century, and you’ll visit him there. It’s, well… it’s a sight to see, I’ll tell you that much. Go easy on yourself though, okay? Accept the things you can’t change. You’ll understand what I mean when you get there.”

It sounds even more ominous than before. 

“Well, get on and see her then,” Steve’s older self says, tipping his head up at the tenement.

Steve hesitates. There are about a million other questions he’d like to ask, but something tells him he won’t get an answer to any of them. That and there’s no time for it if he wants to be sure of seeing her... A brief pause and he nods to his older self, turning on his heel and heading back toward the street.

Older Steve is right though. It is a pointless exercise. Steve’s feet never hit the ground. At least not on a sidewalk in New York.

When the world reorients itself, he’s back in his cabin in Indiana, hair still breeze-tousled, with the words of his future self ringing in his ears.

_You can’t change anything. Don’t waste your time trying._

It takes a lot longer before Steve accepts it though. Not until he’s lived his last evening in New York with Bucky several times over.

He’s been the man watching from the shadows, coat collar pulled high around his neck, as he and Bucky share their last hug. The man with his face concealed behind a hastily purchased bunch of flowers as Bucky and his date skip past on their way to the dance hall. A stranger, only two people distant from Bucky in the crowd as Stark shows off his levitating car, forgoing the spectacle in front of him to stare at the back of Bucky’s head.

If he only would turn around.

If only Steve could reach out to him, to tell him not to go.

But Bucky doesn’t, and Steve can’t. The crowd jostles and shoves him the other way, and he trips over his feet, falling to the pavement. By the time he’s righted himself, Bucky’s gone.

And that’s the thing – there’s always something. From the mother needing help with her children, to the elderly man asking for directions, or even the times Steve travels again before he can make himself heard, the world always intervenes to come between them.

It’s improbable and unfair, but Steve has half a mind that if he ever did get within a hands-width of Bucky, lightning might somehow arc down from the perfectly cloudless sky just to stop him.

The reality of what his older self says proves to be frustratingly, irrefutably true.

As the latter half of the 1940’s rolls around, Steve gets his first taste of what being a hunted fugitive really means.

A man pulls up outside the general store where he works, in a spotless jet-black Buick that immediately grabs Steve’s attention, because it definitely doesn’t belong to anyone in town. The man’s all-black suit is equally neat and tidy, brunet hair slicked back in the modern style, and as he approaches the counter something roils uneasily in Steve’s stomach.

Everything about the man’s manner is shark-like and distrustworthy, and he consults a small notebook, tapping the end of his pen against it before finally glancing up at Steve, eyes razor-sharp. “I’m looking for information on someone called Steven Rogers,” he says, quiet and measured in a way that screams danger. “Know anyone by that name around here?”

Steve swallows hard against the sudden dryness in his mouth, hoping it doesn’t look as obvious as it feels. “No,” he says, making an attempt to slow his speech and affect the slight Kentucky drawl most people from around here have. “Ain’t no one from ‘round here with that name. We’re a small town… so I’d know.”

Either the man is convinced by his acting, or he’s just good at giving nothing away. “Well…” he says, glancing down at his notepad again, face a blank slate before turning a thin-lipped smile on Steve and sliding a business card across the counter. “If you hear anything, do give me a call Mr…”

“Uh… Smith,” Steve supplies for him.

“Mr. Smith,” the man agrees impartially, looking him over once again. “Mr. Rogers is a fugitive wanted by the government of this country. Any information on his whereabouts will be well rewarded.”

_Shit_ . So they’re back on his case, and paying people off for it too. Steve’s fingers tighten into a fist. _Say something Rogers, you idiot._

“I’ll bear that in mind Mr…” He pinches the business card between his fingers, lifting it off the counter and squinting at it. “ _Agent_ Rumlow. If I hear anything I’ll be sure to call you right away.”

The other man smiles, pleased. “See that you do.”

As he exits the shop, Steve breathes a sigh of relief. That was close. Far too close. Thank God he had the foresight not to use his real name when he arrived here.

He inspects the card again. It has a logo on it, an eagle with outstretched wings, and the name “SHIELD”. It looks suspiciously similar to the logo of the old SSR, and considering what they know about him, Steve reasons they might even be the same group. He wonders if Peggy is still working there.

Though hell, knowing Peggy, she’s probably running the place by now.

He sticks around in Indiana for several weeks more, hoping the whole incident might just be a one-off that will blow over with time. But when several more men – far less civilised than the last – show up and begin intimidating people around town for information, he realises with a familiar sinking feeling that it’s time to move on.

It’s from them he finally learns his condition has been given a name – “Chrono-Impairment” – which sounds an awful lot like something Howard Stark might come up with on a boozy night to gloss over the real truth of the matter. That Steve’s a failed scientific experiment and nothing more.

He packs his bags, sneaking across the field of swaying wheat behind his cabin by moonlight. As he reaches the far fence line, he hears the sound of tyres crunching down his driveway, raised voices, and splintering wood.

_Just in the nick of time, then._

He flees to a nearby farm and steals a car, managing to make it deep into Illinois before the sun rises.

The year that follows recalls the very worst of his days living rough after his first escape from the SSR. He goes through names almost as fast as towns, never sticking to one for more than a few weeks at a time. The places he does visit, he moves on from quickly, fearing his strange behaviour and periodic absenteeism might give him away. When he does occasionally loiter too long, the men in black suits inevitably follow, forcing him to flee and begin the process all over again.

This cat and mouse chase takes him gradually further and further west, to states with snow-capped mountains, wide open prairies, and straight empty highways that bake beneath the harsh desert sun, day after cloudless day.

He even debates leaving the country entirely. Not by air – that’s far too easily policed – but across the border to Canada, or maybe Mexico. But if SHIELD’s reach is as long as the SSR’s was, they’ll find him again eventually, Steve reasons. Perhaps sooner rather than later. After all, it’s not like he and his complete inability to speak Spanish would blend in well in Mexico.

So eventually, as the 1940s come to a close, Steve finds himself at nearly the opposite coast entirely, skipping between short-lived jobs in Nevada.

It’s here, finally, that he manages to run the trail cold, in a burgeoning town called Las Vegas, built on dirty money, dirty deals, and a Mob presence that rules over the entire endeavour. Sin City is the Wild West reborn, a place for those who want to make themselves or disappear altogether.

Beneath the glittering new lights of the road they call The Strip, Steve resigns himself to cutting a deal with the Mob, putting his light fingers and quick wit to work in exchange for protection and a new identity. He does as much for them as his increasingly pragmatic sense of morality will let him. Counting cards, corporate espionage, shady backroom deals – anything that doesn’t require directly harming people.

No matter how desperate Steve gets, there are still some lines he refuses to cross.

But Las Vegas’ development is good for everyone, the Mob says, and there are more than enough politicians, with more than enough invested, to overlook the seedier side of things. In bed with Vegas so to speak, to a greater or lesser literal degree.

Which works to Steve’s advantage. He doesn’t enjoy the lawbreaking side of the work, but it doesn’t sit right with him that the government would imprison one of its own citizens for life, either. Especially not after they volunteered to serve their country. By contrast, the Mob is a family affair. They look after their own, paying more than anyone else around, and treating their employees with more respect than Steve’s seen anywhere else. 

He figures that somewhere between his and the government’s differing points of view, there must exist an uncomfortable equilibrium where neither he nor SHIELD quite wins or loses, but at least he gets to keep his freedom.

But between all the running and narrow escapes, and his work with the Mob in Vegas, there are good times too.

Steve travels to Bucky often, in nearly every decade of the 20th century. Out of all of them, his favourite is the 60s. It’s a turbulent decade for the world, and Bucky’s active during most of it, influencing global politics from behind the scenes. By then, he’s warmed to Steve enough to develop the physical side of their relationship too.

It’s the best of everything. A happy Bucky who recognises Steve (if only for their meetings since he became the Winter Soldier), and the time and freedom to pursue their relationship, no matter which corner of the globe they find themselves in.

Through Bucky, Steve learns the events that will shape the decade. A nuclear missile crisis, civil rights protests, a war in South-East Asia, and the assassination of a prominent American President— the latter _not_ actually Bucky’s work, despite popular belief.

It was certainly meant to be. But here’s the thing about time-travelling boyfriends, or Steve anyway: he always seems to have a knack for turning up at the worst possible times. So much so, he begins to theorize that heightened stress on Bucky’s part might actually draw him in, like a moth to the flame, much the same way as his own stress causes him to travel.

Either way, it’s pretty hard to take a kill shot when a naked man drops out of thin air on top of you. By the time Bucky’s overcome his surprise, the President’s motorcade has already driven by, and some other enterprising shooter has taken the opportunity to make an infamous name for themselves. Nutjob or fall-guy, no one is ever truly sure, but Bucky’s handlers take the outcome as the sign of a framing well done.

Only Steve and Bucky really know the truth and, ironically, sightings of an alleged second shooter on a grassy knoll fuel speculation amongst conspiracy theorists for decades to come.

But their existence isn’t all shenanigans, hotel sex, and undercover dates on the Soviet Union’s tab. Because sometimes when Steve shows up, Bucky isn’t really there at all.

Well, he is, but he isn’t.

After tiring of his growing insubordination in the late 50s, his Soviet masters decide that between missions, he should be put into cold storage. For years at a time, if necessary.

It brings an entirely new dimension to his title the “Winter” Soldier.

Cryosleep preserves Bucky, making him almost as much a man out of time as Steve. It also explains what future-Steve said to him that day in New York — that he would visit Bucky in the next century. He’d wondered at the time how it could be possible.

But Bucky being frozen doesn’t stop Steve from travelling to him.

Those trips are the worst. Where Steve arrives to a dark basement with a frosted cryo pod, and has to spend hours on end shivering and naked on a grated metal floor. Sometimes people even enter the lab, and Steve has to take cover so they can’t see him. Thankfully, none of the technicians ever seem to expect anyone else to be there, in the storage lab of a secure facility, because they never notice his presence. Not that it makes the experience any less terrifying. 

On those trips Steve spends hours just staring at Bucky’s face, lit by the ethereal, otherworldly glow of the pod. Hoping that somehow, Bucky knows he’s not alone. It’s heartbreaking being so close to him, yet unable to do a thing to help.

Apparently that’s not enough though, because around the mid 70s, things get worse again. Something happens, a catalyst of sorts, that future Bucky won’t tell him about, even when he _does_ remember. Which is probably only about fifty percent of the time.

Whatever it is, it causes the Soviets to start utilising a machine that wipes Bucky’s memories between missions. At least— that’s the best explanation Steve is able to glean from him, when he’s coherent enough to speak about it. The whole process makes him less man, more efficient, ruthless killing machine, devoid of all independent thought or emotion.

He even has a hard time remembering Steve.

On more than one occasion, Steve finds himself having to negotiate his way out of a tense and charged confrontation with a volatile and paranoid assassin, for whom code words have become triggers to memories that only confuse and aggravate him further.

It makes what has – until now – been an escape, into an unpleasant game of chance. Which Bucky will Steve travel to today? The loving one who remembers and welcomes him with open arms, the suspicious one of early years who can at least still be reasoned with, or the unstable one liable to threaten him with bodily harm for daring to suggest they might be acquainted?

It’s during one such instance, around the early 2000s, that Steve finally realises the end he’s always imagined for himself – at the hands of SHIELD or HYDRA – might not be the only way he could go.

Especially not after Bucky’s hands close around Steve’s slender neck, squeezing hard on his windpipe as he shoves Steve against the wall. 

“You know me,” Steve tries to insist between choked breaths that do nothing to get enough air into his lungs. His head feels light and dizzy, and the world seems to be spinning sickly around him.

Bucky just scowls, tightening his grip. “I don’t know _you_.”

“Yes, you _do_ . Please Buck,” Steve gasps, seeing stars. Wouldn’t it be sadly ironic, if after everything, _this_ is how he goes? But it can’t be— it’s not _time_ yet.

The pressure on his neck eases a little and Bucky’s scowl softens, replaced by creeping confusion. “What did you call me?” he asks.

“Bucky,” Steve rasps, mustering everything he has left to raise his hand and stroke his fingertips down Bucky’s cheek, desperate and uncoordinated. “Please. I need you to remember.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath, then Bucky drops him, taking several steps back and staring at Steve with horror. His eyes flick and down Steve’s form, coming to rest on his neck, which Steve assumes must now look about as good as it feels.

“Oh my God,” Bucky says, “Jesus Christ, Steve. What happened?”

He looks scared and lost, childlike almost, and Steve doesn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. It’s not his fault. The conditioning he goes through would kill a lesser man.

Better for him to think it happened before Steve got here.

Bucky’s eyes are glittering and glassy, mouth quivering unevenly, and despite everything, it’s more than Steve can do not to open his arms to him. He circles them gently around 200lbs of sobbing, snotty, lethal weapon, feeling like a painful hole is tearing itself in his chest – one that makes the bruising on his neck pale by comparison.

It’s as much a curse as a gift, travelling, when the destination is like this. Worse still, knowing there’s absolutely nothing you can do to change it.

Two more years to go.


	7. Chapter 7

### 1957-1973

The Soldier understands now, why Steve was so sad that night in Paris.

It’s because he gets frozen between missions. For years even sometimes. Which – as Steve explains it – doesn’t stop him from travelling to the Soldier anyway. How when he does, the Soldier’s face is pale and unmoving, veiled by a thin sheen of frost that glitters like arctic snow.

The Soldier imagines it must be like staring at a corpse.

That he has zero awareness of Steve’s distress on his behalf doesn’t make it any better.

He can always tell the times when Steve’s last visit happened while he was on ice. There’s a sadness in his eyes that betrays him. A way he clings to the Soldier just a little tighter, demanding his attention and drinking him in as though he’s trying to memorise every little detail.

It must be what gets him through.

But when the Soldier suggests one day that maybe they could run away from it all together, Steve just shakes his head, lips drawing into a rueful curve. “No,” he says, like there can’t be any argument. “That’s not what happens.”

By now, the Soldier knows better than to disagree with him.

Besides, he’s starting to develop other concerns. Like the fact he’s never seen Steve any older than his mid-30s.

Logic dictates that if Steve travels throughout his entire lifetime after the experiment, then the Soldier should see him at every possible age. Until he’s an old man, wrinkled and grey, with puckered lips and arthritis in his joints. 

Instead, it’s like he makes it halfway into his third decade and just vanishes. There _is_ an obvious explanation for that, though not one the Soldier wants to consider. Steve is too big a part of his life to contemplate losing.

But as cagey as Steve is about sharing any details from his life in the past, he has mentioned being pursued. The Soldier’s done as much as he can to give Steve some skills that might help him evade capture. But the fact remains that Steve’s a skinny, sickly asthmatic at the best of times, who’s never going to be able to fight his way out of a tight corner.

It could just as easily be his condition that does him in, though.

Like if he ends up somewhere he can’t escape from. Or appears in front of unfamiliar people and can’t get away. Or if he gets discovered in Russia while the Soldier’s sleeping. Or – in a possibility so stupidly simple the Soldier hadn’t even considered it prior to one particular visit – he gets caught out in the weather.

The Soldier is staying in yet another bland motel when it happens. It’s Zürich, though it could just as easily be London, or Los Angeles, or literally anywhere else in the world. There’s a mustard yellow theme to the entire room, with an orange velvet bedspread and curtains, and thick shag pile carpet in a garish pattern liable to make anyone not entirely sober immediately nauseous.

Steve falls onto it, coughing harshly and curling in on himself, the slender knobs of his spine facing the Soldier. His knees draw up to his chest, arms wrapping around them in an obvious attempt to contain the bone-deep shudders racking through his body.

With a cry of alarm, the Soldier rushes to his side, desperately turning him to check for injuries. There are none he can see, but Steve’s skin is freezing to the touch, hair soaking wet and plastered to his forehead.

“Steve? Steve, what happened?” he demands, voice creeping up in pitch.

Teeth chattering, Steve barely even manages to turn his head. “They c… came for me… I got away, but only just. Had to… hide out... s’winter right now. Cold…”

Another shiver courses through him and the Soldier decides enough is enough. Hypothermia – it’s one of the first things every army soldier learns about in basic training, though how he knows that, he can’t seem to recall. But the most important thing is to warm the person back up, and the fastest way to do that is—

Body heat.

Taking Steve gently in his arms, the Soldier carries him to the bed, peels back the covers, and lays him onto it. He pauses for a second, just long enough to take in the unhealthy bluish tint on Steve’s lips, then sighs and begins unbuttoning his jacket.

“S’okay Bucky,” Steve mumbles, making a half-hearted attempt to pull the blankets over himself. “I’m fine.”

The Soldier rolls his eyes. As much as it hurts to be mistaken for Steve’s long lost friend, all it proves is that Steve is not, in fact, fine. “Shut up, punk,” he says, the words rolling all too easily off his tongue, like the steps to a familiar dance that no amount of time can erase. There’s no reason it should feel so comfortable, so the fact it does is something the Soldier would rather not think about.

Luckily, he has more important things to worry about right now. He climbs into bed next to Steve, stripped down to just his underwear, and pulls Steve’s bony frame against his. They press together from chest to ankle, and despite his earlier protests, when Steve’s cold skin meets the Soldier’s heat, he lets out a small sigh and melts gratefully against it. The crown of his head tucks beneath the Soldier’s chin, frigid fingers finding a home at the warmth of his sides, breath ghosting over his heart.

Which absolutely _doesn’t_ skip a beat…

This might not be the right situation, but the Soldier remembers Paris. Remembers Steve’s lips on his, and the feeling of being wanted, and of wanting in return. They’ve done it more since, and he is – by all accounts – a good kisser. Or at the very least, a fast learner. According to Steve anyway, who is definitely not biased.

But it’s never gone any further than that between them.

It’s not that the Soldier hasn’t wanted to, but Steve doesn’t always stay long enough, and it feels like he’s been holding back. Taking things slow, though for what reason isn’t clear.

In any case, now clearly isn’t the time to wonder on it. The Soldier forces himself to focus on the details of the room during the long minutes it takes for Steve’s shivers to subside, and his icy skin to warm.

But when Steve finally stretches out languorously against him, clearly back to his usual temperature, he still doesn’t let go. So light it could almost be mistaken for a passing breeze, Steve nuzzles against the Soldier’s throat, breath tickling the hollow at its base. Briefly, he presses his soft lips against it.

The Soldier sucks in a sharp breath, imagination going… _places_.

He buries his nose in Steve’s damp hair, inhaling its sweet rain-soaked smell, and tightening his fingertips into Steve’s skin. It doesn’t help that it causes Steve to press further against him, with a small appreciative murmur that sends blood straight to the Soldier’s cock.

“Mmmm…” Steve hums, kissing his way up the Soldier’s neck.

The Soldier feels himself stiffen, in more ways than one. He clears his throat, resolving to extract himself from this situation before it goes places Steve has clearly indicated before, he has no interest in it going. “So you seem, ah, warmer… now,” he manages.

“Mmmhmm,” Steve acknowledges again, doing nothing to stop the slow upward progression of his mouth.

“So um… I suppose we should get out of bed then?”

Steve makes a noise that sounds awfully like an objection. One hand slides up to tangle into the Soldier’s hair, wrapping it around his fingers and using that leverage to tilt the Soldier’s head down until their eyes meet.

A single look at Steve’s smouldering expression tells the Soldier they’re not leaving the bed tonight without doing more than just kissing.

“If you want to.”

The Soldier swallows. It’s an intimidating prospect, because he doesn’t have any experience in this area. Not that he knows of anyway. But maybe Steve knows him better than he knows himself; having given him the time to figure it all out. Because now, the Soldier’s certain he’s never wanted anything more in his whole life. “Not really…” he murmurs.

He’s not sure if it’s Steve who moves first, or him, or whether they both move at the same time.

Next thing he knows they’re kissing again, Steve’s tongue deep in the Soldier’s mouth, hands running over his skin like Steve can’t get enough of it. Everywhere he touches feels hot, like embers kindling the beginnings of an uncontrollable fire, and _damn_ the Soldier wants him. Burns with it.

Still more tentative than Steve, he tries running his hands softly up Steve’s back, barely more than a light graze of fingertips beside his spine. Steve shudders though, arching into him with a small cry that sends something hot straight to the Soldier’s stomach.

_Fuck_ — if he wasn’t hard before, he definitely is now.

In a bold move he noses at Steve’s chin, laying a light line of kisses down his neck. From Steve’s needy intake of breath and the way he tips his head back, it’s obviously the right thing to do. His small fingers curl around the Soldier’s shoulders, clutching the skin there like an anchor.

There’s something so right about being with Steve like this. It’s familiar somehow, like returning to a place the Soldier’s been before. A street layout he knows by heart, even if the buildings have changed over time. But he _wants_ to know it again.

He slides his hands down to Steve’s hips, pulling them together and groaning when Steve’s cock slides across his own. Steve smiles against his lips and repeats the action, tangling his fingers into the Soldier’s hair with just enough pressure to send shivers tingling all the way to his fingertips.

“God, I love when you get like this,” Steve says against the side of his mouth, voice low and rough.

He moves to kiss along the Soldier’s jaw again, but the Soldier stops him, holding him still. “Like what?” he asks, just as low, feeling distinctly like he’s playing with fire.

Steve’s smile tilts upward around the edges, fingers splaying fondly over the Soldier’s cheek. His eyes are half-lidded and dark. “Like you can’t wait to get inside me.”

He drags their cocks together again as though trying to make a point, and the Soldier feels his heart flutter in his chest. The idea of being inside Steve sounds amazing. But at the same time it irritates him that Steve’s talking like it’s already happened. Maybe it has for _him_ , but the Soldier would appreciate the chance to at least _feel_ like this is a choice he’s making of his own volition.

“You know what?” he says, voice a muffled murmur against the hollow of Steve’s neck. “You’re a goddamn punk. Telling me what I feel.”

Bastard that he is, Steve just grins like he’s happy about being insulted. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

The Soldier scoffs, though that’s hard when it feels like every part of him wants to accept what Steve’s offering. As if every cell of his is calling out to every cell of Steve’s, and the answer is the magnetic north to his south – an irresistible attraction that they couldn’t deny if they tried.

“See?” Steve says smugly like he knows it.

God, it’s irritating.

With a growl of frustration the Soldier grips Steve’s ass firmly and rolls them over so Steve’s on top, straddling his hips. Steve giggles and the Soldier can’t help but notice the fine crinkles around his eyes, spreading out like a delicate spider web. He really does age gracefully. And when he’s happy like this, he’s gorgeous.

“Look,” the Soldier says, aiming for authoritative and commanding, but not quite making it. “I don’t care what the future you and me do, but you’re with _me_ now, and I haven’t done this before. So slow down.”

A little of the amusement bleeds from Steve’s face. “Wait… you haven’t?” he asks, like that’s surprising.

The Soldier feels his face becoming hot. “No. We’ve kissed a little, but uh… nothing more than that.”

Steve’s eyebrows rise. He leans down, hands coming to rest cupping the Soldier’s cheeks, unexpectedly chaste, expression serious. “Oh God… I’m so sorry James. I didn’t know… I shouldn’t have assumed. I’ll uh… I’ll just get off… Ah, I mean…”

He tries to move, but the Soldier holds him firmly in place, tightening his hands around Steve’s hips. Whatever he wants from this, it’s not to go back to what they’ve already had. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asks, trying to sound more confident than he feels.

Steve purses his lips. “I’m not going to make you do anything you’re not ready for.”

The Soldier makes a noise of frustration. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I _am_ ready. You’re right, I goddamn want you.” He thrusts up as he says it and sees Steve’s indrawn breath, the control it takes for him not to move. “Just… help me out here. Show me what to do.”

Steve considers him like he’s going to refuse, but the Soldier stares him down and in the end he sighs, corners of his mouth curving upward. “You’re sure?” he asks, expression somehow indescribably fond.

The Soldier slips a hand to the nape of Steve’s neck, pulling him down into another kiss. Slowly, Steve relaxes over him, skin against skin.

“I’m sure.”

The Soldier swipes his tongue across Steve’s slightly parted lips and Steve opens then, giving him free access. It’s then he knows he’s won. They kiss for a few minutes longer, moving against each other with barely constrained desire, until eventually Steve breaks away, head resting on the Soldier’s forehead, panting.

“All right. You win. But we’re starting slow, okay?”

He looks like he’s waiting for a response, and something leaps with excitement inside the Soldier. This is it. The next step he’s been waiting for.

Humming with happiness, he nods, arms tightening around Steve. “Fine by me.”

Steve dips his head and kisses him again, brief but deep. He taps one of the Soldier’s arms decisively. “For this I’m going to need you to let go of me.”

“Let go?” The Soldier frowns again. Is this a trick?

Steve smiles. “Just trust me.”

Unwillingly, the Soldier loosens his hold and Steve wriggles out of his arms, sliding lower. With maddening slowness he trails his hands and mouth down the Soldier’s body, lavishing every part of it with attention that leaves it tingling and heated until finally he gets low enough to—

Oh _fuck_ yes.

When Steve mouths the Soldier’s cock through the fabric of his underwear it lights up every single nerve in his body like it’s the Fourth of July. Steve looks up and smiles like he knows it, eyes dark with desire beneath his stupidly long lashes. His cheeks are lightly flushed, almost-dry hair wispy across his forehead now.

“Don’t stop,” the Soldier says, making a discontented face.

Steve laughs, slipping his fingers beneath the elastic of the Soldier’s briefs and teasing them lower in a way that has him squirming on the bed. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were ready for this.”

“Mmmm,” the Soldier agrees, wishing he’d just hurry up and get on with it.

Steve laughs again, cheerful in a way that makes the Soldier’s chest feel a little floaty and weightless. Steve’s not usually this happy when he’s this age. But today it’s like he’s entirely forgotten his near-death experience from earlier, and whatever else it is that makes him unhappy in his own time too. 

“Time to get these off,” Steve declares, tugging at the Soldier’s briefs until he’s managed to slide them past his ankles. He pauses for a moment then smirks. “And now we get _you_ off.”

The Soldier would groan at Steve’s poor taste in humour, but he finds himself swallowing it beneath a groan of an entirely different kind as Steve finally takes his cock into his mouth. It feels hot and slick and perfect, and the Soldier arches into it, fingers knotting in the sheets as a ragged shiver ripples through him.

Steve works his cock up and down, using his hands on what he can’t quite fit his mouth, and it’s like nothing else the Soldier has ever experienced. Like every good feeling he’s ever had is building up inside him all at once. He gasps with every stroke, every lick, and the way Steve seems to know exactly when to speed up or slow down to tease the feeling out until the very end.

When the Soldier finally comes, it’s with Steve’s name on his lips, writhing against the sheets. Steve swallows him down, then pulls off, laying his cheek against the Soldier’s inner thigh. He looks slightly dazed, huffing a little for breath like he does every time his asthma flares up. This can’t be easy for him, the Soldier realises.

He smooths a hand over Steve’s hair then draws him up to lie beside him, arms wrapped around his waist. “Thank you,” he says softly, pressing a kiss to Steve’s lips and tasting the salt on them. It’s not as unpleasant as he might have expected. “That was amazing.”

Steve’s eyes light up and he looks so happy the Soldier has to kiss him all over again. They snuggle together, and the Soldier tucks a strand of Steve’s hair behind his ear, gently twirling it with his fingers. What he really wants, is to be able to give Steve the same kind of pleasure Steve just gave him. Problem is, he has no idea where to start.

Steve’s head rests somewhere near his heart, and the Soldier tilts it up to face him. “I want you to show me how to do that,” he says, swallowing a little against his nervousness.

Steve smiles in a way that immediately puts the Soldier at ease. He ducks his head, cheeks a little flushed. “Sure.”

That night, neither of them get much sleep.

The first time they go beyond blow jobs doesn’t start so well though. 

When Steve shows up, the Soldier is conducting recon in Budapest. By now they’ve got a system sorted out, so it’s quick work to pull a few clothes out of his bag and get Steve dressed and back to the motel the Soldier’s staying in. That’s about where the normality ends though – if it could ever be called that.

Because this Steve is in a bad mood.

For all that the Soldier has seen him in nearly every state of mind before – tired, anxious, upset, even looking over his shoulder with paranoia – he’s never once been unhappy to see the Soldier.

But tonight he is.

He’s reticent, sulky, and short-tempered when questioned about it. In lieu of giving any actual answers, he just pushes rough kisses onto the Soldier, nearly smothering him with his body, and pinning him to the bed like there’s no tomorrow. The Soldier doesn’t exactly object, but it doesn’t seem much like Steve either. He’s not usually the sort for rash action and throwing caution to the wind.

There’s something wrong, and the Soldier wants to know what.

He places a steadying palm on Steve’s chest, holding him away. “Steve wait…”

It earns him a scowl.

“Why?” is the short response.

The Soldier can’t help but press his lips together, and all it does is deepen the furrows in Steve’s forehead. “Because this isn’t like you.”

Steve leans down and kisses him again, pushing his lips against the Soldier’s with something like desperation, tongue thrusting deep into his mouth. It’s almost aggressive. Like he wants to silence the Soldier. “Maybe it is,” he says, too loud. “Maybe I just want this, with you. No strings attached.”

Which is… definitely not like Steve. He’s all about strings and getting attached.

“You said you wanted to take things slow,” the Soldier insists, sitting up and utilising his greater strength to move them both until they’re seated on the edge of the mattress, Steve straddling his lap, knees on either side of his hips. “That I wasn’t ready.”

Steve makes a face. “Well, future or past me – whichever one you were talking to - was wrong.”

He makes an attempt to move in again, and the Soldier catches him by the shoulders, holding him at arm’s length. What could make Steve act like this? Unless…

“You’ve seen something,” the Soldier guesses, watching Steve closely.

Steve makes a face and looks away, staring down at the bedspread. At anything that isn’t the Soldier. Then eventually he sighs. “No…. I just had a bad day, okay? I wouldn’t mind forgetting it for a while.”

His eyes finally meet the Soldier’s again. There’s nothing in them to indicate a lie. Still, the Soldier can’t quite shake the feeling…

Flesh hand sliding down to Steve’s hip, he sighs in resignation. He understands, if nothing else, the need to get out of your own head sometimes. “All right… If it’s what you want.”

Steve’s lips twist a little, pained. He places one hand over the Soldier’s heart, and with the other lifts the Soldier’s artificial hand off his shoulder, pressing their palms together like they’re dancing, skin on metal. He flexes his fingers against it, watching the movement of its plates and the soft whirring of its internal mechanisms as they move to compensate.

For a long moment they stay like that, utterly silent. Then, as though unable to help himself, a burst of raw emotion flickers across his face. “I love you, you know,” he blurts out, like it’s an irrefutable truth of the universe.

The Soldier feels his eyes widen, lost for words. Steve loves _him_? He doesn’t feel worthy of anyone’s love… yet here Steve is, professing it anyway.

He’s watching even now, waiting for an answer. The silence between them is deafening.

Does the Soldier love Steve? There’s certainly no one more important in his life, and he’d give it up in a heartbeat if that’s what it took to protect him…

The truth catches him by surprise. Slides through his veins like a subtle, delicious warmth, melting the icy cold around his soul. So this is what it feels like to love and be loved…

He can’t help a nervous smile, sliding his arm round Steve’s waist and pulling him closer, trying out the words on his own lips. “I love you too, Stevie.”

If it comes out breathless and wondrous, maybe that’s because it is.

Steve just sort of breaks. He wraps around the Soldier like a vine on a tree, kissing him, hard and passionate. When they do break apart his eyes seem a little glassy. He rubs at them and smiles. Outwardly, he seems happy, but there’s something beneath it that makes it seem less than genuine even if the actions are right. Regardless, he kisses the Soldier again, long and lingering, and any reservations the Soldier has seem to dissolve in the face of it.

Loving Steve, as it turns out, is a lot of fun.

Fucking him, even more so.

But the longer the Soldier knows Steve, the more certain things become apparent.

Like the fact he visits more often from the years when he’s older. And that sometimes, when he does, it’s with bruises and scrapes he won’t talk about.

“How did this happen?” the Soldier asks one evening, stroking softly over vivid purple bruising on Steve’s delicate wrist with his thumb.

Beside their park bench, a fountain splashes water softly into a small pool. Moths flit about in the lamplight. It’s a rare moment of stolen peace for them both.

Steve’s mouth tightens, eyes flickering away. “It’s not important.”

Firming up his hold as much as he can without hurting Steve, the Soldier frowns. Lately, it feels as though Steve’s been keeping things from him. Not just the usual stuff – like his knowledge of the future he insists can’t be shared – but something big.

Like where his injuries come from. Why, whenever Steve’s older, he looks at the Soldier with a sadness eerily reminiscent of the way he looked at him before he got frozen for the first time. It’s unsettling, and it makes the Soldier unhappy that he can’t do anything to help.

He huffs a breath, letting his hands slide back to his lap, one fist clenched. “It’s important to me.”

Steve looks unhappy at that, but he still says nothing, jaw set determinedly.

“I want to know, Steve.”

Steve’s mouth turns down unhappily at that. “Know what? Because if it’s about this—” he points to his bruised wrists, “—I’ve already said I can’t tell you.”

The Soldier makes a frustrated noise. “It’s not _just_ that.”

“Then what?”

The Soldier pauses. Steve isn’t going to like this. Won’t answer probably, but it’s still something that needs to be asked. “Just how far forward have you been?”

As expected, Steve’s face is unreadable. “I can’t tell you that, James. You haven’t lived it yet.”

“Then I’m there? In the future you’ve been to?”

Steve’s lips contort like he’s frustrated to have given even that much away. “You are.”

“And what about you?” It sounds hopeful. All the Soldier wants is a sign. Anything to indicate he and Steve might have a future together. 

In an increasingly fractured and ever-changing world, Steve is his one constant. His guiding light. He doesn’t think he can live without that.

But Steve looks down, worrying at his bruises. His silence says it all.

“How?” the Soldier demands, feeling like a very important part of him is shattering inside. “How does it happen?” His voice breaks a little on the words. “When?”

Steve’s shoulders sag. “I don’t know! I _can’t_. I haven’t lived it yet.”

He sounds angry and upset to even be asked.

A soft breeze rustles through the trees, ruffling his hair. It’s all the Soldier can do not to reach out and touch it. To take Steve in his arms and tell him it’s going to be okay. That he’ll do whatever’s required to keep him safe. Change the future if that’s what it takes.

Steve sighs heavily and shuffles along the bench until he’s pressed against the Soldier’s side, hand resting lightly over his thigh. He attempts a smile, but it manifests washed-out and thin. “I’m sorry, James. Sometimes you just have to accept the things you can’t change.”

Something stirs inside the Soldier’s gut at that, hot and tight, and seeping into his veins like a poison. He backs away from Steve, failing to contain it. “Damn it, Steve! Maybe _you_ can’t change anything, but that doesn’t mean _I_ can’t.”

Steve clicks his tongue in equal frustration. “You _can’t_. That’s not how it works. Trust me, I know.”

“Yeah?” the Soldier asks, knowing Steve’s only trying to help, but unable to stop himself. Steve might be working from his lived experience of how time travel works. But there’s a part of it the Soldier just won’t accept. _Can’t_ accept it. He’s not losing Steve, no matter what.

“Yeah,” Steve contends, and from his tone, it’s obvious the discussion is over. Ending the same way it always does, in the same old disagreement.

The Soldier stands, kicking the bench sharply and puffing the air from his cheeks. He walks away, folding his arms and watching the cascade of water from the fountain.

Several minutes later, Steve appears quietly beside him, slipping an arm around his waist. It’s not the sort of thing they normally do in public – it draws too much attention – but at this time of night, there’s no one else around. Just a blanket of still night air and the soft sound of crickets.

The Soldier relaxes into Steve, letting himself be pulled close. “I’m not giving up,” he says, resolute and watching Steve from the corner of his eye. “I’ll find a way.”

Steve looks briefly down at his feet, hiding the hint of a smile. Standing on tiptoes, he reaches up to press his forehead against the Soldier’s, hand curling affectionately around the nape of his neck. “I know you will,” he whispers, breath warm on the Soldier’s lips.

There’s not the slightest hint that he believes it.

The Soldier kisses him anyway.

_Brick tenements standing row on row._

_A crowd cheers. Popcorn and soda and sunshine. Laughter and blue eyes and friendship. It belonged to him… once…_

_A place. A city where the skyscrapers tower over the streets. New… New…_

_Remember Buck._

_You have to remember…_

### New Jersey, 1973

Steve’s older than the Soldier’s ever seen him this time – weary creases etched into his face, bones worryingly visible beneath a frame that seems increasingly malnourished and thin. There are dark bags beneath his eyes that sit at odds with the brave front he tries to put on.

“James…” He smiles, but it’s tired and stretched.

“How old are you?” the Soldier asks.

Steve’s smile fades. “36,” he says. “As of last week.”

The silence stretches heavy and long between them both. It’s not as though either of them can fail to grasp the significance of the number.

This is it. Uncharted territory.

But now that Steve’s here, the Soldier thinks he knows what to do.

He’s been having more of those dreams lately, the strange ones that so often happen around Steve. Of a lifetime he can’t remember, in a place he’s never been. Sent to the United States on a mission to assassinate a senator in Dallas, the Soldier has found himself drawn gradually further and further east. Absent without leave, his handlers might call it. He figures it’ll take them a few days to realise though, and even more to follow. Which might just give him the time he needs. 

He doesn’t know where he’s headed, only that he’s following gut instinct, and the call of something too strong to ignore. Something that’s taken him all the way to New Jersey, just across the across the river from—

New York.

The name alone sets his heart racing. _That’s_ where they need to be. Where Steve needs to be. He can’t explain how he knows, but he _does_ know, with a certainly that feels etched into his very bones.

Steve being here now _can’t_ be a coincidence.

The Soldier grabs his hand. “I know where we have to go.”

They race through the streets, the Soldier counting the signs and dragging Steve behind him as they race along the sidewalk past a small green park and a library. He has no address to navigate to, only a vague impression, and a feeling that calls to him like a compass needle pointing north.

“James…” Steve huffs, nearly tripping over his feet in his struggle to keep up. “James stop. This isn’t going to help.”

The Soldier can’t stop though. He’ll carry Steve if he has to. But they have to make it to their destination before Steve disappears. It’s the only way. He’s almost positive someone told him that, once. Certain he didn’t dream it…

_Warm hands, blue eyes, and a 6ft tall body that belied a gentle soul…_

He shakes it from his head as they skid to a stop, staring up at the buildings around them. 

They’re not right. 

The Soldier swallows. It should be here. Heart in his mouth, he glances around, panic rising by the second.

Steve watches silently, mouth an unhappy irregular line. “I told you… you can’t change the future.”

The Soldier wants to break something. Tear down everything in sight until he finds the one thing he knows he’s looking for. But there’s no denying what’s plainly in front of him.

He was wrong.

A small hand wraps around his. Steve’s gazing up at him, beautiful blue eyes unspeakably sad. “You tried.”

It feels like the Soldier’s heart is going to break. “But it has to be here!”

Steve shakes his head, gesturing around them. “There’s nothing here, James.”

The Soldier hangs his head. All he wanted was for Steve to be safe, but it seems he can’t even manage that.

“Come on.” Steve tugs at his arm with a kind of weary resignation. “Let’s go and get some coffee before I go, huh?”

They make it as far as a flophouse on the Lower East Side before Steve disappears. It’s a terrible, hopeless place, full of utterly hopeless people. Somewhere dreams go to die.

The Soldier clutches at Steve’s hands as he begins to vanish, willing the universe to let him stay. “We’ll find another way, Steve,” he says in desperation. “Don’t give up.”

It aches in his chest something terrible when Steve just smiles his sad smile, squeezing the Soldier’s hands with his own. A perfect picture of complete and utter resignation. “I’m sorry James. It’s not meant to be between us. I’ll visit you plenty more times, in this century and the next. You’ll never be alone, I promise…”

“Steve no—"

“Shut up and listen, jerk,” Steve interrupts, pressing a quick desperate kiss to the Soldier’s mouth. He’s making a valiant effort to smile, but it does nothing to hide how much this is hurting him. “I know you’re going to get through this… that you have a future.” He swallows roughly. “You’ll be happy. Even if it’s not with me…”

“ _No_ ,” the Soldier repeats.

“Yes,” Steve insists, one hand stroking his cheek. “And I’m happy that one of us makes it through. You can’t change what’s coming, so just… don’t do anything stupid and make it harder for yourself in the meantime.”

“How can I?” the Soldier asks, thinking of Steve’s injuries. “You take all the stupid with _you_.”

Steve manages a small smile just before he disappears, the vague impression of his warmth left on the Soldier’s lips and tear stained cheeks. Yet again, he finds himself alone, lost amongst the washed up flotsam of humanity who inhabit this place. His handlers will find him eventually, of course. They have informants everywhere, and if he wants to escape, he needs to run.

But with Steve gone, he just can’t seem to bring himself to do it. What would be the point?

In the end, he manages two overly long weeks, drowning his sorrows on a thread bare mattress with the other drunks and junkies, before his masters finally arrive on his tail. When they do, the Soldier goes without a fight, unable to offer any explanation for his actions.

From the nasty way Karpov smiles though, it looks like he’s got a solution for this newest insubordination in mind.

They strap him to an iron chair. A nightmarish machine that clamps around his head, activating with pain so excruciating it’s almost mind-numbing, like a bolt of white-hot lightning straight through the Soldier’s skull...

Afterward, all he knows is the mission.

He is a Soldier, and Soldiers follow orders.

He will comply. 


	8. Chapter 8

### 1953-1954

Steve’s life in Las Vegas works well for a few years. He gets a small apartment all to himself, a comfortable amount of spending money, and the kind of security he couldn’t have anywhere else in the world.

Until 1953, anyway.

It all starts with a corruption scandal that sweeps up several prominent senators, eventually penetrating all the way to the halls of power in Washington, D.C. Something about dicks and money being in places they shouldn’t be, and bringing the good standing of the political establishment into disrepute.

As Steve’s bosses note with cynicism, it’s not like anyone expects this kind of thing not to go on. Just that they expect it to go on out of the public eye. So after photos leak to newspapers nationwide, painting a Sodom and Gomorrah-esque web of sex, lies, and dirty money – steps _have_ to be taken. 

At first it feels like the immunity Steve had might have pulled through intact. He hopes against all reason that the government won’t have been able to trace him here.

But one typically hot cloudless day in June, those hopes are dashed. A government agent is reported sniffing round town – a woman no less – persistent and smart, with brunette hair, striking red lipstick, and a prim and proper accent. Within hours the news reaches Steve – just one of many whom she could be after – but straight away he _knows_.

It’s Peggy. It’s got to be.

That afternoon, he carefully disguises himself and joins the crowds pouring into the Desert Inn. The Strip’s newest and tallest hotel is a beacon of luxurious opulence, complete with a top-floor bar sporting mahogany furniture, marble countertops, floor to ceiling glass windows, and commanding views of the surrounding land.

It’s the perfect location for a well-heeled crowd of onlookers to view the glorious spectacle that is a nuclear test, all whilst sipping ‘atomic’ cocktails and discussing the latest society gossip, barely 65 miles distant from annihilation.

For Steve, it’s the perfect cover.

Easily unnoticed amongst an entranced crowd, he’s able to blend in for just long enough to see her – an unmissable slim profile silhouetted against the window, slight furrow to her brows.

He slips out again, long before the mushroom cloud disperses.

It could be a coincidence. But Steve knows in his heart it isn’t. SHIELD, the SSR, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days, are onto him.

Within the day, the Mob has tapped Peggy’s phone line – not Steve’s doing, because despite their differences, he could never bring himself to deliberately put her in danger. Regardless, he still manages to get his hands on a transcript. She’s as careful ever, never divulging information that could be incriminating or reveal her purpose here. Not unless you already knew what you were listening for anyway.

Steve knows. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Peggy’s here for him. So, too, is another group, although it sounds like even Peggy doesn’t know exactly who they are. But if they’re the same people who came after him in Indiana, Steve doesn’t want to stick around to find out.

He tidies up his affairs with the Mob, withdraws his savings from the bank, and returns to his apartment to pack up his things. As he reaches the top of the building’s stairs though, it becomes immediately apparent that’s no longer an option. Because standing beside his door are two very large, very intimidating men. Immediately, Steve’s on high alert. He knows all his neighbours, but he doesn’t recognise these two, which can only mean one thing…

Head ducked, hands in his pockets, Steve turns on his heel and descends the stairs again, heart pounding. If he’s lucky, they didn’t see him. If not…

He reaches the next floor down, hearing attuned for any sound of pursuit. But the only noise in the stairwell is his own urgent footsteps. Slowly, he breathes out, afraid of even doing that much, in case they somehow overhear him.

For a minute, he thinks he’s got away with it.

Then he hears the soft scuff of shoes on tile above him.

Heart racing, he speeds up, one hand trailing down the railing, too afraid to stop and look back in case it gives them the chance to gain on him. His asthma begins to flare up, its wheezy tightness in his chest making his head spin uncomfortably. But he’s so close to the exit now. Only two floors to go. 

His pursuers’ footsteps echo through the enclosed space, increasing to match his pace, then bettering it. They’re catching up to him, and encumbered by limitations as he is, he’s slowing down. But Steve knows Las Vegas like the back of his hand. If he can just make it out to the street, he can—

A hand grabs his shoulder.

_It’s over_ , Steve realises, feeling sick to his stomach. After all this time. So close to freedom.

But there’s one last get out of jail free card he hasn’t counted on.

A fourth set of rushed footsteps ring out, sharper than the rest, and from below. Heels on tile.

To Steve’s immense surprise, Peggy appears around the corner of the stairwell, pulling to a composed stop in front of him, gun levelled at a target behind his head. As ever, her tidy curls and neat pencil skirt look spotlessly perfect. Like she’s only just stepped into them, and not (Steve presumes) run the better part of a mile through the stinking ninety degree Las Vegas streets.

For all that he can’t help but be happy to see her, especially given the circumstances, he also knows it can’t possibly bode well for his escape.

“Good afternoon gentlemen,” Peggy says, tone perfectly icy. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to take your hands off Mr. Rogers. He and I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

One of the men behind Steve laughs. “Oh,” he says, snorting derisively. “It’s just a woman.”

It’s absolutely the wrong thing to say. As composed as Peggy may appear on the outside, Steve knows all too well she and him have one very important trait in common – they both hate to be underestimated.

Something cold flashes across Peggy’s face, and in a millisecond she’s aimed her weapon down, not hesitating to pull the trigger. A sharp report echoes around the stairwell. Steve flinches.

There’s a howl of pain from behind him, and the hand on his shoulder slips off. A quick glance shows blood seeping from a brand new hole in his would-be captor’s shoe.

“Perhaps you didn’t understand me,” Peggy continues, shifting to target the man’s partner. “You’re going to hand Mr. Rogers over to me, then give yourselves up. Otherwise, I will shoot you. Somewhere a little more vital this time.”

Steve doesn’t doubt the truth of her words for a second. As far as he’s concerned, the game is up.

But clearly the men chasing him don’t know Peggy.

“We’ll do no such thing,” the uninjured one growls, turning his gun on Steve.

So fast that Steve barely has time to register it, Peggy shoves him out of the way. The bullet that follows narrowly misses them both. Peggy returns fire, ushering Steve down the stairs behind her as they beat a hasty retreat.

“Keep going,” she hisses, prodding him again. Then, as he stares wistfully down the stairs, “And don’t even think about running.”

Their eyes meet. She definitely knows him too well. “I’m not going back with you Peggy,” Steve says. “I won’t be a prisoner.”

Peggy scowls, expression betraying obvious disapproval. But luckily for Steve, there’s no time to argue. Another bullet pings off the balustrade beside them and they duck, continuing their rushed retreat.

“I’m not asking you to be,” Peggy says forcefully. “I’m asking you to do what’s best for your _country_. You can’t fight men like this. I know you’re stubborn and pig-headed and stronger than you look, but even you have limits. If they catch you…”

She pushes him around the corner, ducking behind a cement pillar. Only one more floor to go.

“I won’t let them.”

“I know you think you won’t, but that’s what I’m saying, Steve. This organisation, you can’t fight them. They’ll keep coming and coming until one day, they get you.”

She views him, face so open and honest Steve almost wants to believe her. To buy the rhetoric that he should give up the rest of his life for his country. Only, if it were actually just his life, that would almost be easier. But that’s not what she’s asking for.

There’s another shot, and Peggy cries out, clamping a hand over her forearm. She sucks in a sharp breath, peeking between her fingers to reveal a tear in the fabric of her blouse, and a deep graze on the skin. “Oh, bother.”

Steve’s eyes widen at the blood. He swallows, reaching out to her. “Pegs—"

Peggy swats his hand away. “It’s nothing, just a scratch.”

It’s more than that, Steve knows, but of course she’d never say. “Peggy…”

She glances down at the wound, wincing as she flexes her hand. Her gun arm. For a second something unrecognisable – indecision maybe – seems to flicker across her features. But just as quickly, it’s gone. She straightens, giving Steve a gentle shove toward the exit with her good arm. “As much as it pains me to say it, I do believe it’s time for you to go.”

Steve stares stupidly at her.

Peggy rolls her eyes. “For God’s sake Rogers, don’t gape at me like a landed fish. I can’t be worrying about your safety as well as trying to bring these two in, and I’m afraid SHIELD simply needs their intel more than it needs you right now.”

Steve’s brain is a little slow to catch up. He’s being let go? “But—”

Peggy cuts him off. “You and I both know there’s nothing SHIELD can do to hold you if you don’t want to be held. You’ve escaped before, you’ll do it again. So until the day you’re ready to give yourself up, it’s my job to ensure nobody else gets their hands on you. A job you’re making very bloody difficult right now,” she finishes a little huffily.

She fires a few more shots around the corner, just enough to hold their pursuers at bay.

Steve’s heart races. She’s right, of course. But it isn’t going to change his mind. He doesn’t want to be SHIELD’s live-in prisoner any more than he wants to be anyone’s lab rat. That’s not what he imagined when he volunteered to serve his country. He wants to be out in the world actually _doing_ something for people. Sure, maybe he can’t help Bucky, but who knows what else he might be able to accomplish? It’s the principle of the matter…

“I’m sorry, Peggy,” he says.

She snorts. “No you’re not.”

Steve’s lips pull together, wry. “No… I’m not.”

Peggy sighs, sounding somehow more fond than irritated. Like she already knows this is a predetermined outcome. “Just think about it for me, Steve. Please.”

“Sure,” he offers, already knowing she doesn’t believe he will for a second.

Peggy smiles, genuine, despite his refusal. “You’re a terrible liar. But I think perhaps under different circumstances we could have made a good team.”

Steve smiles back, surprised to find he really means it. It’s a nice idea, he thinks. If Project Rebirth had gone to plan, maybe.

“Now get out of here,” Peggy tells him.

Their assailants are on the move again, and Steve would stay and help her… he _would_. Only he knows she’s right. There’s nothing he can do in this situation, and staying would only make him a hindrance. Briefly, he touches her shoulder. “Peggy… thank you.”

She nods curtly at him, already preoccupied with what’s to come. But as Steve makes it the last few steps to the exit, he can just hear it when she says, “Maybe one day, you’ll return the favour.”

It’s easy enough for Steve to make it out of Las Vegas unhampered. After so many years, the city is just as familiar to him as Brooklyn ever was. There are connections he can draw on. People willing to help him.

Out in the real world though, he’s back to living life on the run, chased by a more persistent and dogged following than ever before.

Sometimes it’s SHIELD. On more than one occasion Steve watches Agent Rumlow’s face blur past from the inside of a train or a bus, head turning in confusion, as though he can’t figure out where things went wrong.

But sometimes it’s not. And the other group who follow are far worse.

Only ever one step behind Steve, they’re ruthless, calculating, and utterly unshakeable. Steve uses every trick he knows to get them off his tail, but everywhere he goes, they follow. So much so, he becomes convinced they would chase him to the uttermost ends of the earth itself, if only he could figure out the way.

They make it impossible to hold down a job of any kind, and six months into his forced nomadic lifestyle, Steve’s carefully saved funds are dwindling. Forced to steal and beg just to feed himself, and faced with the ever-present threat of capture, Steve finds himself travelling more than he ever has before.

Further too.

Like the time he skips so far into the future, people walk the streets staring into palm-sized rectangular devices, with strange strings plugged in to their ears. Where the skyscrapers of Manhattan have grown more dense and lofty than ever before, and beneath them, the lights of Times Square proclaim the year is 2013.

Drawn back to Brooklyn on instinct, Steve finds himself looking into the window of a tidy brick row house at dusk, staring beyond the flowers of the window box, where two people are standing in a homely kitchen. One of them looks an awful lot like Bucky. His hair is long, as it always is in later years, but his expression is happy in a way that makes Steve’s heart hurt. He smiles and laughs just like he did before the war.

The same way he still does in Steve’s dreams.

But as Steve watches from the shadows outside, Bucky cups his metal fingers around the cheek of the other man with him – tall, blond, shoulders like a goddamn mountain – and pulls him in for a kiss.

Steve can only see the man’s back, but there’s no mistaking the intimacy of the gesture. It’s the same way Bucky kisses Steve.

In his chest, happiness twists to bitter jealousy.

It’s an awful, confusing feeling. Every single fibre of Steve is happy for Bucky. Glad that he lives through his years of abuse and comes out the other side in one piece. That he finds someone to love in the future, who will love him, long after Steve’s gone.

But none of that changes the way it makes his blood boil, seething with rage at seeing someone else take what should have been his.

It persists with him for weeks – the kind of slow-burning anger that keeps him warm on harsh winter nights when he has to seek out any shelter he can from the snow. That sees him through the awful encounter where Bucky doesn’t recognise him, and can’t be reasoned with, and the bruises he leaves on Steve’s flesh to prove it. Then finally, carries him all the way to the visit where, to his shame, he takes out his anger and frustration on Bucky, pushing him into something he probably isn’t ready for, after having promised they’ll take it slow.

Not that Bucky seems particularly put out by the experience.

Afterward though, all Steve feels is shame.

Months later, as the net really begins to tighten around him, and he closes in on his 36th birthday, the cold, hard reality of his situation finally hits home. There is no future for him – at the very least not one with Bucky, and possibly not one at all.

Somehow it doesn’t come as much of a surprise. More like a truth he’s known all along, ever since Bucky told him about his maximum age all those years ago. It probably should have been obvious even then, that flip-flopping back and forth in time was never going to result in a happy ending.

Steve keeps the truth from Bucky though, not wanting to worry him with it.

Bucky who remains, as ever, Steve’s only light in an increasingly dark existence. Of course, not every visit to him is a good one, but those that are, make up for the rest. They give Steve the strength to carry on, despite knowing what’s coming. When hunger, fear, and desperation become his constant companions on the road, Bucky is his only respite.

One day, after another close call with his pursuers which only sees him escape by virtue of some well-timed travelling, Steve begins to truly consider what Peggy said, about giving himself up. SHIELD at least won’t kill him, which is more than can be said for their competition. But he still remembers his months locked up as a prisoner, and the prospect of facing down a lifetime of the same is less than appealing. Besides, even if he did, it’s like Peggy said – SHIELD can’t stop him travelling, so Bucky should still have seen him older than he is now. The fact he hasn’t, can mean only one thing…

Predetermination, Steve thinks, is a real kick in the teeth.

He can map nearly every decade of the 20th century now, and much of the history that goes with it. The shifting power balance between nations that gives rise to Communism, only to have it collapse in on itself near the end of the 20th century. The merging of cultures and economies that means that in 1941, Japan was the enemy, but in 2000, you can buy sushi in New York. The Stonewall Riots, and the slow liberalisation and acceptance that follow – things Steve can only dream of in the era he’s from.

Across it all, time is the only constant. Irreversible, inarguable, and unchanging.

Time is not Steve’s friend.

The difficulty though, is in knowing exactly when his last visit to Bucky will be. And the problem is, Steve _doesn’t_ know. 36 isn’t specific enough. It still leaves an entire year’s worth of days, any of which could potentially be his last.

More to the point, Bucky won’t even notice. He can’t. Steve doesn’t know which of his visits into the future mark the end of their time together, and most of the time, he’s visiting a Bucky for which that prospect is still years distant. It makes no sense saying goodbye to someone for whom Steve will only be turning up again next week – albeit as a younger version of himself.

So even if closure is something Steve desperately needs, it’s not something he can have.

As summer slides gradually into fall, Steve finds himself drawn to one of the few remaining areas of the country he hasn’t yet been forced to run to – the Pacific Northwest. Washington state is wild and rugged, a landscape of steep mountains, evergreen forests, glacier-carved valleys and deep alpine lakes. At last, Steve’s traversed the entire country, coast to coast. It’s one of the few benefits to an otherwise failed experiment – having the opportunity to experience America as he never could have before.

But, tired of running, with a weariness that feels sunk into his very soul, it’s amongst the brooding age-old conifer forests that Steve chooses to settle for good. He takes up residence in an abandoned log cabin miles from anywhere. It’s his final gambit – that if traveling out here doesn’t kill him through sheer exposure to the elements, it should be next to impossible for his pursuers to track him down.

For a few glorious months, he lives in greater peace than he has in many years. He reads books, catches up on sleep, and spends long, lazy days out by the lake, even managing enough sun exposure between rain showers to gain a healthy new flush of freckles across his cheeks. More at ease than he has been for years, he travels less, as well.

In fact, as the fall days shorten, and the first dusting of winter snow settles to the ground, Steve almost gives in to the yearning part of him that hopes this is how he spends the rest of his life – finally grounded in one place and time. Maybe the explanation for his absence from Bucky’s future doesn’t have to be something dark and defeatist. It could be as simple as this: finding peace at the ends of the earth.

But in his heart, he always knew they’d follow him eventually.

What makes a failed serum so valuable, Steve doesn’t know. Pride maybe – the idea that others can succeed where Erskine failed. Or an inability to realise that, just maybe, mastery of time is not a power humans are supposed to possess.

Whatever the reason, it’s Steve who pays the price.

In the early hours of a frosty December morning, he awakens to the sound of a soft thump outside. It _could_ be snow sliding off the roof, but a gut feeling tells him it isn’t. He stares at the embers glowing in the fireplace, suddenly attuned to every tiny noise outside the cabin. The sharp _schnick_ that could be a branch trampled by a passing animal or a human foot. The soft swish that could be an owl unfurling its wings in the crisp mountain air, or the rustle of clothing as his pursuers surround the cabin.

That was always the downside to this place. That if they did find Steve here, there would be no escape. He’d just really hoped they wouldn’t find him.

He curls in on himself, pulling the blanket up to his chin, wishing it could somehow shield him from what’s to come.

_Bucky… I’m sorry…_

With a deafening crack, the cabin door swings inwards, banging on its hinges. Suddenly the room is a cacophony of boots on wood, men yelling, and hands that grab for Steve and hold him down. They’re black on black, dressed in tactical fatigues and balaclavas, and they pin his wrists, twisting them roughly to make sure he’s restrained.

_Now would be a really good time to travel…_

“Needle, _now_ ,” one of the men commands, in a voice that sounds somehow strangely familiar. “Before he can go anywhere.”

He holds out a hand expectantly, but the man by his side hesitates. “Aren’t we supposed to get him back to the lab first?”

The leader snorts. “Don’t tell me how to do my job. He’s escaped before. Blood first, lab later, after he’s dead. We’re not taking any chances this time.” He gestures impatiently, and the second man hands over a syringe, needle point glinting in the firelight. “Hold him still, and if he struggles, you know what to do.”

It’s surreal, almost dreamlike, knowing the moment Steve’s waited years for is finally here. This is it. The end of the line for him.

But here’s the thing about Steve… he might know exactly what’s coming, but he’s never gone down without a fight in his life. It’s as good as a physical impossibility. Like trying to breathe underwater.

It was one of the very first lessons Steve’s Ma ever taught him, that – small and sickly as he was – people would always underestimate him. “You’ve got to keep fighting,” she’d say. “You’re stronger than anyone knows. Never give up, Steve.”

So he doesn’t. He struggles, thrashing violently enough that they can’t get the needle into him at all. He pays for it too, tasting the sharp iron-tang of blood on his tongue, the dull ache as their hands dig bruises into his skin, and the forge-hot crack of something giving way in his chest when they hit him. 

_Never give up, Steve. Stand up... push back…_

There’s something dancing around the edge of his consciousness, like a light on a dark ocean horizon at night. It feels comforting and familiar… like sharing a too-small apartment in Brooklyn, a cool hand on a fevered brow, a soft touch to a split lip. Like eating ice cream on the beach at Coney Island after throwing up on the Cyclone, or sharing popcorn and laughter at a ball game…

It feels like… Bucky.

But, more than that…

_Love._

It feels like love, Steve realises. Because that’s what it is. What it always was. How could he not have seen? Nothing they did to Bucky fundamentally changed who he was. Not beneath it all. He always loved Steve. They always loved each other.

There’s a surge of raw emotion in Steve’s chest, deep enough to drown in. An entire lifetime of words left unsaid, opportunities missed. He feels like his heart might burst. Like he could do anything.

Bucky loves him.

This can’t be where it ends. It _can’t_ be.

Clenching his teeth against the pain, Steve focuses everything he has left on reaching out for that love. For _Bucky_.

His head spins.

The rest of the world goes along with it. 


	9. Chapter 9

### Fall 2012 - Spring 2013

Time is an abstract concept for the Soldier.

He loses great lengths of it to cryosleep, emerging to a world either subtly or drastically changed in his absence. Other parts are taken by the machine they use to focus him on his missions. After it, his reality becomes hazy and indistinct, memories of Steve existing behind a barrier he sometimes can’t penetrate. It’s like looking into a bubble, everything just distorted enough, that all the Soldier recognises is an unsettling sense of familiarity to the diminutive blond man who keeps showing up claiming to know him.

The inability to explain it all makes him angry.

Sometime around the last decade of the 20th century – after a short sojourn of wakefulness in the Middle East accompanying Karpov during the final years of his life – he gets a new handler. Then, as communist Russia falls, and the Iron Curtain is finally torn down, new owners based in America.

It makes little difference to the Soldier, though. One master is much the same as another.

HYDRA seems to have less use for him though, which means less time out of cryosleep, and less time with Steve. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that no matter how many times he’s wiped these days, his memories seem to be returning at an ever-increasing rate. Like his brain is rejecting their treatment and healing on its own.

The dreams he keeps having are becoming more frequent and lifelike too – of a city, a time, a person he’s never known. Or has he? Because sometimes they seem less like dreams and more like…

HYDRA wipes him again.

There’s another mission for the Soldier, this time in a city called New York. He can’t explain it, but the name alone stirs a strange excitement within him, a weightlessness, like the fluttering of a thousand butterflies in the pit of his stomach.

The task is simple; a run of the mill assassination. Get in and get out as quickly as possible, and do not, under any circumstances, deviate from the mission parameters.

The Soldier understands.

In theory.

In practice, compliance is a little harder.

The Soldier has just laid his weapons out on the floor of his hotel room, preparing to check them over when it happens – the small shift of air around him that indicates Steve’s arrival. The Soldier feels a rush of excitement. More often than not these days he remembers Steve, and this is no exception. 

He turns from his work, expecting to see the bright smile that is the usual hallmark of Steve’s visits.

But the sight that greets him is nothing short of horrifying. Steve’s been hurt. Badly. Dark angry bruises cover the acres of his pale skin, one eye is heavily swollen, and blood seeps from God knows where down his jaw and arms. 

With a cry of alarm, the Soldier rushes to his side, falling to his knees and gently raising Steve off the floor, as though he’s made of cracked glass. His head lolls like ragdoll’s against the Soldier’s chest, but he still manages a smile, just as warm and happy as ever. “Hey Buck…” he rasps.

As much as the Soldier hates hearing the name of Steve’s old friend, he can’t bring himself to correct it either. All things considered, he supposes it’s understandable. In desperation, he traces the fine lines of Steve’s face, fingers coming away sticky with congealed blood. Panic begins to rise, tight in his throat. “God Steve… what happened?” he breathes.

With difficulty, Steve draws a shallow breath, fingers squeezing back weakly against the Soldier’s. “They caught up with me… You remember what we talked about… how it ends for me? I think this might be it…”

Terror grips the Soldier, with cold icy tendrils that seep into his veins, leaving him numb. “No. It can’t be. You can’t leave me Steve. I _need_ you.” If there’s any truth to this world, that’s it. Steve is part of him. The foundation he’s built on. The Soldier can’t go on if he’s not here.

“Bucky, listen to me…” Steve says, wheezing between breaths.

_Bucky, again_? As if once wasn’t enough…

And maybe it’s just the effect of seeing Steve like this, but it feels like something in the Soldier finally breaks, like a dam, collapsing under the weight of all their years together. 

“Fucksake Steve, I’m not your goddamn childhood friend! And you’re not allowed to die on me!” he snaps.

Steve just smiles beatifically though. Might as well paint a gold halo behind his head and call him a goddamn saint, because in this moment, he sure looks like one. “Sorry jerk, but you’re wrong. I never pushed you before because I didn’t want to hurt you. Figured it didn’t matter as long as _I_ remembered. But I guess maybe I’m selfish after all. Because I want you to remember… you _are_ him.”

The Soldier stares at Steve in confusion. He’s wrong, obviously. Delirious, probably. Has to be. He’s hurt and confused and doesn’t know what he’s saying…

So why then, does the Soldier feel a twinge of doubt, keen in his chest? As though Steve is reaching out to him, laying bare his heart, and in defiance of everything the Soldier knows to be true, his own heart is reaching back?

“It was you who looked after me when I was sick with the fever,” Steve presses gently, “You who ate half your weight in popcorn at the fourth match of the World Series when the Dodgers lost in the ninth inning. And _you_ who dared me to go that third round on the Cyclone that made me throw up everywhere. I think you felt guilty afterward, because you bought me ice cream and sat with me on the beach until I felt well enough to take the train home again.”

It feels like Steve is speaking from underwater, or very far away. His words are muffled and indistinct, yet somehow the Soldier can make out exactly what he’s saying anyway. Like the lines to a song he’s heard a thousand times before.

Weakly, Steve reaches up to trace his bloody fingers down the Soldier’s jaw, breath sounding increasingly wet. “James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky for short. From Brooklyn, New York. You fought a war and never came home. You were my best friend…” He chokes a little, smile faltering on his lips, twisting with obvious pain. His eyes are soft and fond, and full of emotion. “I loved you. Never told you that, but I did. And I think… you loved me too.”

It’s heart-felt, raw, and primal, and it resonates with something inside the Soldier. Tears down every last barrier he has and lights his way home. 

Because he remembers that day. Vividly. He saved up all summer for the outing. The temperature was hot enough to melt the tar on the roads, and inside the train carriage was boiling. Steve barely managed to make it three rounds the Cyclone before he threw up. And Bucky did feel terrible about it. But since it gave him a legitimate excuse to get his arms around Steve, he couldn’t help being secretly a little pleased too. The sand was coarse between their toes as they watched the ocean afterward, and Steve got a spot of melted ice cream on his chin that Bucky would have _killed_ to be able to kiss off…

He had a life, and they stole it from him. Made him forget who he was. What mattered most to him.

Steve’s hand begins to slip off his cheek and Bucky grabs it, knitting their fingers together tightly. “Steve…” he breathes, finding even that much hard to get out around the tight knot of emotion in his throat. “Fuck, Steve…”

“I’m happy, Buck,” Steve says, smiling so hard it crinkles around his eyes. Smiling like he knows he’s won. “The future’s yours.”

Something wet rolls down Bucky’s cheeks. He grips Steve closer, rocking him back and forward. “No, Steve… You can’t leave me now, please… I love you. I always did…”

But Steve’s beautiful blue eyes flutter softly closed.

It feels like a raging tempest swirls into life inside Bucky, out for the blood of those who did this to Steve. Unlike at any previous point in his life, he now has the skills – and memories – to hone that rage into the finely sharpened weapon it deserves to be. What he doesn’t have, is the means. Because whoever did this to Steve, is decades in Bucky’s past. Effectively untouchable.

_And_ … Bucky realises with a start, _Steve’s not dead yet._ His pulse might be weak, but it’s definitely there – a steady, gentle flutter – beneath Bucky’s fingers. Which means there’s still hope. If he acts fast.

Fuck Steve’s belief that the future can’t be changed.

Bucky might love him, but on this they disagree: you make your own future. He _has_ to believe that. And this time, he knows exactly what needs to be done.

_James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038._

_200 Park Avenue, New York. Can you remember that for me Bucky? I need you to remember. It’s going to be important one day…_

He still doesn’t know when or where that memory is from. Only that it’s as familiar to him as the back of his hand. 

Gathering Steve into his arms, Bucky kicks down the door to the hallway, and storms through the hotel lobby, pushing past open-mouthed staff with a murderous stare that dares any of them to try and stop him.

None do.

New York is the answer. And now is the time.

* * *

“Mr. Stark?”

“Not now Jarvis, I’m busy. This algorithm won’t program itself you know.”

“Be that as it may, Sir, I still think you’re going to want to see this.”

“Are you sure? Because, I mean… I’ve got a really big thing for properly calibrated thrust vectoring. It would’ve really helped in that last fight.”

“Sir, two unidentified people have just showed up in the lobby of the tower. I ran facial recognition scans on them both. One returned no result, but the other appears to be the long lost test subject of Project Rebirth, the one your father worked on during the war.”

“Wait… You mean the one that went spectacularly wrong and left the subject with the ability to time travel? The one Dad could never even catch, let alone figure out how to fix?”

“The very same.”

“You know Jarvis, it would’ve been a lot easier if you’d just said that upfront.”

“I thought I did, Sir.”

“No, you said there was something I might want to see. Not ‘Hey Tony, just in case you might’ve wanted to know, the biggest advance to biology and physics in the last century just showed up on your doorstep’. Because that would’ve been a lot clearer.”

“I’ll note the clarification for next time, Sir.”

“Yeah, I think you’re kind of missing the point here… Never mind. Just make sure those two can’t go anywhere until I get down there…”

* * *

“So you’re sure it stops him travelling?” Bucky asks, unconvinced, viewing Steve’s face through the thin film of frost on the inside of the glass of the pod, about a week after their mad dash to Stark Tower. 

“Well… I can’t be sure of course,” Tony says, “But it slows his metabolism to nearly zero, which should also halt whatever mechanism is causing him to travel.”

Bucky folds his arms. He doesn’t like it. He knows exactly what it feels like to be in there, and how Steve felt about seeing him in that state. Now, he thinks he understands why.

“Look, you might not like it,” Tony says, damn near reading his mind. “But whatever the serum did to him is complicated. It’s not something I can fix overnight. I need time for analysis, and to make sure I’ve got a solution that’s actually going to work in the long term.”

Bucky sighs. He knows Tony is right. The last thing any of them want to do is rush and make the situation worse. It’s just that he’s so damn terrified of losing Steve again. If he does travel and goes back to where he came from, Bucky’s certain it’s going to be for the last time. 

Tony watches from across the room, quiet in a way that makes Bucky wonder just how much the expression on his face is giving away. The Winter Soldier was an unfeeling, emotionless killing machine. Bucky Barnes, not so much…

“You know,” Tony says, trying to affect a nonchalant tone and failing in the way people do whenever they’re trying not to sound like what they’re about to say is a big deal. “I could find you a spare cryopod… if you’d like.”

Bucky’s fingers dig automatically into the sides of his ribs, clutching at the warmth beneath his shirt. “No.”

“I only offer because it looks like this kind of upsets you. That and um, how to put it politely, the doctors are saying you’re a head case. They’ve recommended we lock you up. For everyone’s safety.”

He doesn’t say ‘yours too’, but there’s an implication there Bucky can’t entirely overlook.

He shoots Tony a sideways glance. If Tony’s capable of delivering any form of communication without at least a hint of condescension, Bucky’s yet to experience it. But, he’s also been working around the clock on finding a solution for Steve, pulling even longer hours in the lab than Bucky spends there, which is no small feat. 

SHIELD has been keeping Bucky surprisingly busy though. At first it was just fact checking – verifying he was who he claimed to be using old records and a DNA test. Then came the medical and psych evaluations.

They didn’t share the results with him, but it doesn’t take a genius to tell they weren’t good.

Bucky doesn’t need to know. The longer he’s off the ice, the more his memories seem to be returning of their own accord. The operation to replace his arm. The brainwashing. The missions he... forgot. Including the ones where Steve appeared and he—

A wave of nausea washes over him. Maybe it would be better for Steve, for everyone, if he _did_ disappear again.

“If you were willing,” Tony’s saying, “We might be able to set everything straight in there again. Heal the damage that was done.”

“No,” Bucky repeats firmly. There are precious few things he’s sure of anymore these days, but the fact he’s never letting anyone mess around in his head again is one of them.

Tony already knows that though. He just likes to give Bucky shit.

Comrade Russia. Captain Communist. The Proletariat Man with the Five Year Plan.

He doesn’t mean it seriously, Bucky understands now. Tony’s arrogant and abrasive manner is no less a defense mechanism than Bucky’s quiet withdrawal – both carefully calculated to keep the people around them in the dark about the things they don’t want to share.

Maybe that’s why they’ve been so quick to reach an understanding.

For all that Tony puts on an act, he’s actually a pretty decent guy. Frustratingly self-centred and deeply flawed yes, but it’s not like Bucky’s in any position to judge. In any case, he’s immeasurably grateful to have Tony’s help.

While Bucky waits, he finds himself drawn more and more into SHIELD’s operations.

At first it’s just case files. Specifically, the list that pertains to unsolved assassinations, with an obvious focus on the ones they suspect his involvement in. It’s embarrassingly lengthy, to the extent that Bucky worries it’ll get him thrown out long before Steve ever gets woken up. Regardless, in the interests of making a fresh start, he offers SHIELD everything he remembers.

Afterwards, to his surprise, they ask to assess his combat skills. Know your enemy, he supposes.

Turns out, he supposes wrong.

They offer him a job. Supervised, naturally, because no one – not even Nicholas Fury – is crazy enough to recruit an ex-Soviet assassin and leave him entirely to his own devices. There’s a new initiative underway, Fury explains, a team of sorts, being assembled to protect the Earth from global threats. Bucky, he suggests, looks exactly like the sort of guy who might be interested in doing a bit of avenging.

It’s not that Bucky particularly wants to fight anymore. Sometimes it feels like that’s all he’s done since shipping out in 1943. But this time the offer is just that – an offer. Something for him to decide in his own time, on his own terms. To turn down, if he doesn’t want it. 

He wonders what Steve would do. He did always believe in helping people, and the initiative claims to do just that.

Even so, Bucky can’t help but wonder if it’s not a little bit naïve, signing himself over to new masters to replace the old. He can guess what Steve would say though – that Bucky needs to have a little faith in people. Trust, until they give him a reason not to.

So maybe it’s a little bit of wanting to live up to Steve’s hopes for him, or just wanting to do something to assuage the guilt he feels for his years as the Winter Soldier.

Whatever the reasoning, Bucky accepts.

His work for SHIELD does take him away from the tower and Steve, but it also passes the time.

In any case, Steve is still asleep, and no matter how often Bucky visits him, it does nothing to speed up the process (or so Tony tells him, after having rolled his eyes at Bucky’s presence in his lab _again_ ). Still, Bucky feels a sense of duty in it, because how many countless hours has Steve spent over the years, doing the same for him?

Whenever Tony’s not there, he talks to Steve. Tells him about his progress. The camaraderie he’s gained, and how it makes him miss what they had. How badly he wants Steve to be able to join him here in the future. How sorry he is for everything he did, and how he wouldn’t blame Steve for giving him up because of it.

Because Bucky understands now, that Steve knew all along. He hid the bruises and marks and hurt that Bucky inflicted on him, like the stupid selfless idiot he’s always been, sparing Bucky’s feelings, when he deserved nothing less than the truth thrown back in his face.

How anyone could love a person after that – in spite of it – Bucky doesn’t understand. Yet somehow, Steve did. Does, still… he hopes.

Finally one afternoon, months after first arriving, there’s progress. Bucky walks in from an assignment with Natasha, tired, sweaty and inexplicably craving solyanka – something that happens more often than he can make sense of – to find himself accosted by a jubilant Tony Stark.

“I cracked it!” Tony explains, looking ever-so slightly mad. A little dry-eyed and twitchy, as though he’s been up all night, and substituted sleep for copious amounts of caffeine and loud music.

“Cracked what?” Bucky asks, because with Tony, it could be anything. Inter-dimensional travel, some great refinement to nano-technology, or just the formula to the world’s best coffee. Personally, Bucky kind of hopes for the latter.

“Rogers, you idiot!” Tony all but yells, shaking him by the shoulders. “It’s really very simple when you know what you’re looking for. One little imperfection in the serum leading to an insertion error in his DNA that perpetuated through self-replication. An extra nucleotide or two in the wrong sequence and bam! Time travel. No wonder Dad never figured it out, he _couldn’t_ have, didn’t have the technology to—"

He’s still talking, but all Bucky can hear is ringing in his ears. Tony’s pinpointed the problem. Which has to mean there’s a solution. Doesn’t it? “Tony,” he interrupts, mouth dry. “You can fix it, right?”

Tony looks at him like he’s a complete moron and Bucky’s stomach sinks unpleasantly. 

Then Tony grins. “’Course I can! Already have actually. He should be ready to wake up in oh, about…” he checks his phone briefly. “15 minutes.”

It’s the fastest post-mission shower Bucky’s ever taken.

“So… I do have to warn you,” Tony says, tapping away at his keyboard, “There was one _tiny_ little side effect to correcting the original serum’s flaw. Well… less tiny, more a big side effect actually.”

Bucky narrows his eyes. “What big side effect?” he asks, trying not to succumb to the pang of anxiety in his stomach.

Tony waves a hand at him, inputting the final code to thaw the cryopod. “You’ll see. And who knows,” he says, winking at Bucky, “You might even like it.”

As if _that_ isn’t ominous.

It’s a nail biting wait. In the minutes it takes for Tony to defrost Steve, Bucky fidgets nervously, imagining every worst-case scenario possible. What if Steve doesn’t remember him? Worse, what if he _does_ ? But Tony did say Bucky might _like_ the side effect, whatever that’s supposed to mean…

“Ok, here we go,” Tony says triumphantly as the pod doors begin to swing open.

A rush of cold mist sinks and spreads out across the floor, curling at Bucky’s feet, and behind it—

Bucky gasps.

Steve is… _huge_. Biceps as thick as tree branches, abs so well defined you could model a Greek statue from them. His body is all unfamiliar angles, and bulk, and muscles in places Bucky didn’t even realise there could be muscles. He’s breathing effortlessly, deeply, without the slightest hint of a wheeze, and when he moves, it’s on long, solid legs that have him standing taller even than Bucky.

He’s healthy and perfect, everything the serum was ever meant to make him.

A feeling of dread washes over Bucky.

“See?” Tony grins, obviously proud. “A _big_ problem?” He laughs, short and sharp at his own joke.

But Bucky’s not laughing. His mind is racing a million miles an hour. There’s no way Steve can need him anymore. Not like this. Not after everything he did…

Steve’s eyes find Bucky’s and linger there. Unlike the rest of him, they’re still exactly the same, and it only makes the apprehension in Bucky’s stomach even worse.

Taking a few unsteady steps forward, Steve stumbles over his enormous feet, and Bucky can’t help but rush to catch him. Strong arms slip around his waist, falling easily back into old habits, and Steve’s chin settles gratefully onto Bucky’s shoulder like he’s not sure what else to do with it now he’s too tall to bury it in the crook of Bucky’s neck.

Something eases a little in Bucky’s chest, like a thousand fractured shards slipping seamlessly back together. Steve _knows_ him.

“How do you feel?” Bucky asks, too scared to raise his voice above a half-whisper, in case it somehow breaks the spell between them. 

Steve pulls far enough away to glance down at himself, then back at Bucky, mouth turning up a little wry at the edges. “Taller.”

Despite all his misgivings, Bucky can’t help a snort of laughter. “Still a punk,” he observes.

Bright and warm, Steve smiles, dimples creasing his now filled-in cheeks. It makes Bucky’s heart ache in the most wonderful way. He has the distinct sensation of being wrapped in a very big, very comfortable blanket.

“Thank you,” Steve whispers, blue eyes full of undeserved sincerity, “For saving me.”

“S’nothing,” Bucky says, dizzy with the feel of him. Being close like this sends something molten hot straight to his stomach. Steve’s skin is warm against his shirt, verging on hot even, in a way it never normally is. And God, what Bucky wouldn’t give to have those thick thighs wrapped around him… He doesn’t deserve it, but he’s only human. Resisting his feelings for Steve has always been more than he’s capable of. It’s not that Steve was ever unattractive the way he was before, or that Bucky likes him better like this.

Just that he’d love Steve no matter what.

As though every single version of themselves that’s brought them to this point – together in the same time, at last – recognises itself in the people they are today. It’s the closest Bucky will ever come to believing in fate.

From the corner, Tony clears his throat. “You two do realise it’s getting pretty homoerotic in here, right? All that whispering. Maybe standards were different in your day, but seriously, you’re going to give people ideas if you keep that up.”

A look comes over Steve that Bucky recognises all too well. The one he gets when he’s about to cause trouble. Bucky shouldn’t be surprised by it really. After all, Steve’s spent more than enough time in the latter half of the 20th century to know about the societal changes that took place then, even if he never stopped marvelling at them.

He shoots Bucky a sideways look, question in his expression. _Can I?_

Bucky’s stomach swoops in an excited kind of way. He smiles, barely daring to believe that after everything, he could be so lucky…

But Steve smiles right back, eyes sparkling like the sun on the ocean. “I guess we should clear up any confusion then,” he says to Tony, one hand sliding down to rest over Bucky’s ass and pulling him in close. “It’s _definitely_ homoerotic.” 

With that, he kisses Bucky full on the lips, other hand curling softly around the nape of his neck to play in his hair.

Bucky shivers at Steve’s touch. It’s beautiful and unfamiliar having his head tilted back as they kiss, so different from what he’s used to. But Steve tastes the same as he ever did, sweet and tart, and he still licks into Bucky’s mouth with just as much fervour, taking charge, the same way he always has. For his part, Bucky allows his hands to rove down the firm lines of Steve’s new body – exploring his broad shoulders, contoured back, and pleasingly rounded ass.

Tony makes a slightly choked noise. “I fucking knew it!” he declares. “Are you getting all this Jarvis? I want to make sure Thor pays up on our bet. ‘Just very good friends’, my ass!”

Steve pulls back, forehead resting against Bucky’s, grinning with the enthusiasm of someone who’s not out of breath after just thirty seconds of kissing anymore. Which leaves Bucky wondering exactly what other things he’s capable of doing now too…

Steve, damn him, looks like he knows it.

He leans down – _down_ – to whisper in Bucky’s ear, “So… You got a room somewhere around here or what?” and gives Bucky’s waist a small squeeze.

Jesus fucking Christ, it really does things for Bucky.

He nods, body pressed against Steve’s in a way that communicates exactly how on board with his idea Bucky is. “Uh huh, two floors up.”

“You wanna go there now?”

It’s all Bucky can do not to groan out loud. Does he want to find out exactly what Steve’s new body can do with a few walls and a door between them and everyone else – is that even a question?

“Fuck yes,” he says, voice unintentionally low and rough. 

Steve smiles like Bucky’s made his day. His year even.

Bucky’s heart leaps in his chest, racing like he’s run a marathon.

“Hey Tony,” he asks lightly, glancing across the room, “You’re absolutely sure you fixed him, right?”

A range of emotions crosses over Tony’s face. Of them, the predominant one that lingers is definitely irritation. “Of course I am! What kind of idiot do you take me for, Barnes? It didn’t take me months to wake him up just because I was making him look all pretty for you.”

“And this is permanent, right?” Bucky gestures at Steve’s… _everything._

Tony rolls his eyes. “ _Yes_ , it’s permanent. It’s what the serum was always supposed to do when—"

He launches into some blatantly self-gratifying explanation about the science involved, and Bucky tunes out everything after the initial ‘yes’. What more is there to know? Against all the odds, he and Steve have survived. They’re here, together, in the 21st century with the rest of their lives ahead of them. All the time in the world.

It’s a novel feeling.

Steve’s fingers play across Bucky’s cheek like he still can’t quite fathom how it feels to do it with his new body. Bucky catches his eye, tipping his head toward the door. Steve’s mouth turns up at the corners, and he raises a brow, eyes sparkling. That’s a yes, then.

“—gene therapy but the technology didn’t exist back then, so it’s just lucky the Soviets didn’t get their hands on him. Of course, there are still a few tests I’d like to run if—”

“Later!” Steve and Bucky chorus in unison. 

Crinkles appear around Steve’s eyes at that, and Bucky laughs, taking him by the hand and all but running from the lab, leaving Tony and his contrite noise of disapproval in their wake. Up two flights of stairs, down the hallway, and into Bucky’s room. As they shut the door behind them, Steve pushes Bucky up against it, almost hard enough to wind him.

“Jesus Steve,” Bucky gasps, tilting his head back to give Steve the proper access to kiss his neck. He taps Steve’s side. “You’ve gotta be careful with this body. It’s a weapon.”

“Fuck, sorry,” Steve says, “It’s going to take a bit of getting used to.”

He rucks Bucky’s shirt up, teasing fingers across the sensitive skin of his belly, before lifting it up over his head and throwing in a tangled heap on the floor. Then he’s kissing Bucky again, hot and urgent, and every inch of Bucky’s skin feels charged where it contacts Steve’s. It’s enough to make him feel weak at the knees.

So when Steve hooks clumsy hands beneath his ass and lifts, Bucky goes with it, wrapping his legs around Steve’s ridiculously oversized thighs. He smiles into their kiss, feeling Steve’s mouth curve back under his own.

“What?” Steve asks against Bucky’s lips, low and husky, and rearranging his grip so he’s got a spare hand to tangle through Bucky’s long hair.

“Oh nothing…” Bucky says, watching the flex of Steve’s other arm as it single-handedly supports his weight. It’s like fucking poetry in motion. “Just, I seem to remember doing this for _you_ not so long ago.”

Steve pauses mid-way to the bed at that, looking suddenly doubtful. He bites his lip. “You don’t mind… do you? Me being like this?”

It’s the sort of idiotic thing only Steve could say. As if Bucky could love him any less for it. He cups his hands softly around Steve’s cheeks, still hardly believing his luck. That Steve thinks Bucky’s the one who might not want _him_. “You really are a dumbass.”

A troubled frown pulls at Steve’s forehead. “What does that mea—”

Bucky leans in, kissing him again just to shut him up, thumb tracing over his flushed bottom lip afterward. “It means I’d love you no matter what, Steve. That I’d have you in this body, or your old one, in any decade you chose to come to me. That and—” Bucky continues, seeing the sappy look that’s come over Steve’s face and deciding that, in the interests of continuing what they were doing before, it needs remedial work, “—I’m very interested in what it would feel like to have you rail me into next week with this body.”

Steve blinks, mouth opening a little in surprise, and Bucky grins. It’s fun surprising people. Even more fun surprising Steve, since that doesn’t happen all that often.

But Steve recovers quickly, a wicked little smile settling onto his face. He lifts Bucky higher, licking slowly and suggestively over the tip of his thumb, where it still rests on Steve’s lip, with a well-practiced finesse that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. “That can be arranged.”

Bucky groans, hands sinking down to stroke the lines of Steve’s broad shoulder blades as they travel the rest of the short distance to bed. Everything about Steve’s new body is a contrast to the way it was before. Firm, taut muscle mass in place of knobbly bone. Strength replacing breakability. All of it perfectly arranged to drive Bucky absolutely crazy.

He ducks his head, kissing along Steve’s collarbone and into the hollow of his throat, pausing to breathe in the fresh, clean smell of him. Watches the way his throat works when he swallows, and how the slight catch of his breath betrays his obvious arousal.

He loves how Steve lays him down on the bed, pressing him into the mattress so enthusiastically he accidentally knocks a glass lamp off the bedside table in the process. There’s a loud smash, and Steve jumps, glancing over the edge of the bed with an innocent expression that tries very hard to say he has absolutely no idea how _that_ happened.

It looks so ridiculous, Bucky has to laugh. Then Steve does as well, just because Bucky is, and neither of them can find it in themselves to give a damn about the state of the room’s furniture.

They fall back onto each other, hands, mouths, tongues going everywhere as they make quick work of dispatching their remaining clothing. It’s like being a teenager all over again, Bucky thinks, only better, because he spent most of his teenage years chasing after girls and trying desperately to deny this part of himself. The one that longed for Steve with reckless abandon.

Giving into it is so much more fun.

Especially since the answer to his question is yes – Steve _is_ just as sensitive as he was before. Maybe even more so. He positively arches off the mattress with a breathless moan when Bucky licks a line along his pecs, swiping his tongue over one of Steve’s nipples, brief and teasing. Steve’s fingernails dig marks into the malleable skin at Bucky’s waist, and it’s so gratifying, Bucky has to do it all over again.

But whatever power Bucky has over Steve, Steve has twofold over him. He always did take charge in the bedroom, and Bucky was more than happy to let him. It’s an entirely new dynamic to find that Steve can shift Bucky around by himself if he likes though, and Bucky definitely likes. It’s a heady sensation to relinquish control, and before long he’s flushed with it, hot and wanting and spread out on his stomach, with Steve two fingers deep inside him.

“Damn it, Steve,” he pants, “Just hurry up and fuck me already.”

Clearly in no particular hurry, Steve slides his fingers out, wiping them dry and leaning low over Bucky’s back to whisper near his ear, “Now who’s impatient?”

The long, firm slant of his body presses into Bucky, hard cock edging closer to where Bucky craves it. At the same time, Steve slides a hand down Bucky’s side, slow and teasing, like he’s determined to claim the very last of Bucky’s sanity before the night is out.

Bucky shivers, groaning with the heat of it, and twisting around to pull Steve into a messy kiss. “You’re a fucking punk,” he complains, fingers playing through the soft strands hair around Steve’s ear.

“And you’re a jerk,” Steve responds, words falling effortlessly from his delightfully smiling lips.

It melts Bucky’s heart just a little, to see Steve like this. Bucky’s known him long enough to recognise nearly every single one of Steve’s moods, and even before the serum, true happiness like this was a rare and fleeting thing.

Steve snaps the cap of the lube closed, smiles again, and shifts until he’s kneeling astride Bucky’s hips. His heavy cock settles just between Bucky’s ass cheeks, tantalisingly close in a way that has Bucky arching back into it with a shiver, sliding a hand down to stroke his own cock in a slow, easy rhythm.

It makes Steve’s breath catch audibly. One hand plays across the sensitive skin of Bucky’s back, drawing lines that meander like rivers down his spine. Eventually it settles over Bucky’s hip, steadying him, while Steve uses the other to guide himself in, finally giving Bucky what he’s been longing for – every slick inch of Steve filling him until he’s utterly boneless for want of it. It feels like every nerve in his body has been amplified, a taut string tuned perfectly to respond to Steve alone, and with every touch, Steve is bringing him closer to a crescendo.

He thrusts, slow at first, then faster, rocking into Bucky with a steady pace that soon has them both panting with desire. The fullness of Steve inside him – around him – is perfect, and with every stroke, Bucky can feel himself edging closer to the sublime ecstasy of climax.

“Hnngh,” he pants, hoping to make sure Steve knows just how well he’s doing at this.

“Hah,” Steve says, sounding a lot like he might laugh, if only he wasn’t every bit as wrecked as Bucky feels. 

He thrusts harder again, and Bucky moans out loud, fingers clutching at the sheets as heat gathers low in his belly and thighs. “Steve, I’m close...” he manages between gasps.

“I know,” Steve breathes, draping himself over Bucky’s back, weight supported on a single forearm as he fucks into Bucky, gripping his hip with sweat-damp fingers. “So am I…”

And Jesus fucking Christ – whether it’s the simple change in angle that does it, the extra skin on skin contact with Steve, or just the ruined sound of his voice, Bucky doesn’t know. But within seconds he’s crying out Steve’s name, body shaking through an orgasm so intense it feels like he’s left the fucking planet altogether.

There’s nowhere he’d rather be and no one he’d rather be with.

With the self-control of a saint, Steve slows his pace, dragging out Bucky’s pleasure as long as he can, whispering soft endearments into the shallow dip of his spine. But as Bucky comes back down from it, Steve squeezes an arm around him, voice run beautifully ragged with need. “Can I finish… please? Is that ok?”

Blissed out and totally at ease, Bucky nods. It’s a novelty just for him to be the one getting fucked for a change, since usually it’s the other way around. But maybe he can look forward to more of it, since Steve isn’t going to be up and disappearing on him ever again.

Steve moves, short and sharp, in increasingly jerky bursts, then without warning he swears softly against Bucky’s neck, breathing out in hot puffs across his skin. His fingers dig into the hollow above Bucky’s hip bone, spilling into him with a series of coarse shudders. “Jesus Buck, the things you do to me…”

It turns out the things Bucky does to Steve are, in fact, good enough for him to go a second round. Just one of the many perks of a properly functioning super-soldier serum. 

Afterwards they snuggle, Steve curled protectively around Bucky’s back, one arm draped over his waist and belly.

It’s nice. But Bucky still feels like a fraud for being here, knowing what he knows now, about the years he forgot. “You know,” he whispers, pressing back into Steve, feeling as though all of his fears are about to come rushing out of him at once, like a river in flood. “I was worried when you first came out of that pod…”

“Hm?” Steve hums, shifting lazily. His arm tightens around Bucky’s waist.

It’s exactly the kind of reassurance Bucky needs, as he lays bare the darkest parts of his soul. He takes a deep breath. “That you wouldn’t need me anymore. Want me… after everything I did. To you…”

There’s a moment’s silence.

“Oh Buck, no…” Steve nuzzles between his shoulder blades, breath ghosting warm across his skin. He moulds himself to Bucky’s body, tucking his knees inside the curve of Bucky’s, and planting a lingering kiss at the base of his neck. “I could never…” He pulls Bucky closer, voice solemn. “See, it’s like this really smart guy I know once told me… The past me needed you. The present me needs you—” Another tender kiss, higher up Bucky’s spine. “—and whoever I am next week will need you.”

Steve says it like it’s the most true thing in the whole world. And goddamn, Bucky’s not usually one for crying, but it’s hard not to with the way it feels like his heart might overflow right now. “Until the end of the line, huh?” he asks quietly, rolling over to face Steve.

The smile on his face is beautiful. Full of love, so pure and unadulterated, Bucky wonders how he ever missed it all those years ago.

Steve’s fingers slide along his jaw, steady and true as he leans in, seeking Bucky’s lips again.

“Until the end of the line, pal.”

And that’s that.

But as much as lodging at the tower worked for Bucky while Steve was frozen, it undeniably doesn’t work after he’s defrosted. It’s not just that they can’t keep their hands off each other, or that Tony and the other Avengers get immeasurably sick of all their sappy endearments and romantic gestures. It’s just that, after everything they’ve been through, they need their own space. Somewhere to put down roots and call home.

So when Steve opens the classifieds one afternoon, and shows Bucky a tidy brick row house for lease in Brooklyn, he doesn’t even have to say a word.

“Yes,” Bucky blurts out.

Steve’s responding smile would outshine the sun.

They move in a little over a month later. It’s the mundane things about it that bring them joy, like picking out furniture, or arranging a room just the way they want it. The way it feels like with every step they take, they’re solidifying their commitment to life, the future, and to each other. 

But not long after, Steve is faced with a decision. One he agonises over, long and hard, before finally turning to Bucky for guidance.

“What do you think, Buck?” he asks, hands clasped in his lap as he sits hunched over on their couch. “I mean… I’m not sure I can accept. They’re still the same organisation that spent all those years chasing me. The same people who were happy to lock me up and throw away the key. I don’t know if I can let all that go. If I even _should_ …”

He glances up at Bucky, hesitant expression an entreaty for guidance and advice. Though why he thinks Bucky of all people is qualified to give it, Bucky doesn’t know. That’s typical Steve though, always has been. Always so quick to believe the best in people, even when he shouldn’t be. 

Bucky sighs, bringing their joined hands up so he can kiss the back of Steve’s, wrapping his other hand around it too. A joining of metal and flesh, and of time and chance, that would never have been possible if not for one very important sentiment.

“I know you don’t like it…” he says. “What if SHIELD turns out to be everything you remember, right? What if you find out you’ve picked the wrong side?” Bucky gives Steve’s hand an understanding squeeze. “But the team… Tony, Natasha, Fury, all of them— they’re not the same people who chose that for you. They trusted me, even though they had every reason not to. And they’ve helped you, despite not knowing whether you’ll even be on their side. They’re good people, Steve… I think you have to trust in that. Because at the end of the day, what else have we got?”

Bucky lets their hands fall back to his lap, and Steve stares at them for a long time, lost in thought. Eventually though, he sighs, eyes flicking back up to Bucky’s. “You’re right, you know. Of course you’re right.”

Bucky freezes. Moral advice that actually hit the target? “I am?”

Steve’s mouth hints at a smile. “Yeah… They do deserve a second chance. They’ve given me one, so I guess I owe them that much. A favour for a favour.”

“You really don’t,” Bucky says. “Not if you don’t want to. They’d understand.”

Ducking his head, Steve curls a forefinger around the swell of Bucky’s thumb, stroking at the soft skin there. “Maybe, but it’s the right thing to do.”

And that’s the part of Steve that Bucky’s always loved. The part that makes him a better person than Bucky could ever hope to be. The same one that inspires him to try anyway.

“Besides,” Steve continues, bumping his shoulder against Bucky’s with a grin. “I can’t leave a pal to fight alone. You’d probably do something stupid…”

Bucky snorts. What is he thinking? Steve’s a goddamn punk. Always has been, always will be. “ _I’ll_ do something stupid? Look who’s talking!”

He gives Steve’s shoulder a playful shove, and Steve shoves back, far too hard, laughing. Within seconds they’re sprawled out over the couch, making out, and before they know it, the rest of the afternoon is gone.

But for all Bucky and Steve’s happiness in the 21st century, there’s just one thing left that neither of them can figure out and it bothers both of them equally, for different reasons.

How did Bucky know?

Because, as Steve points out, it’s not like it’s the only time Bucky’s ever brought him to Stark Tower.

Or tried to anyway.

It’s just that the first time, it hadn’t actually been built yet. Which means, even back then, he _knew_. Long before HYDRA ever had the ability to plant the information in his head.

It stirs something horrible in Bucky’s stomach, because even if he doesn’t remember, he knows Steve is right. It _is_ too much of a coincidence. But the ugly truth of it is that he can’t completely trust his own mind anymore. The memories in it are often fragmented, fractured, and dreamlike, and Bucky sometimes has to check with Steve if they’re real at all.

So whatever the real answer is, they’ll probably never know.

At least, that’s what Bucky thinks. Until the day he sees Steve – Captain America – in uniform for the first time. 

The instant it happens, Bucky just _knows_. With the same kind of soul-deep certainty that he knows he loves Steve.

It’s not just _a_ memory. It’s _the_ memory. The Soldier’s first. Bucky’s last.

_Shackled to a table in a dimly lit room, clothes stiff with dirt and sweat. A nauseous, dizzy lurch every time he moves that keeps him down more surely than the cuffs restraining him. Muscles in his jaw that ache from teeth clenched tight as the IV in his arm delivers him steadily closer to the monstrous thing taking root inside of him._

_He can’t give in to it. He has to escape. To go home. To Steve._

_Because Bucky’s going to tell him, for real this time._

_Everything’s getting hazy around the edges though, pulled into the orbit of the blankness growing at the back of his mind. More and more he finds himself losing time to it. Losing the fight – for what, he isn’t sure, but he thinks it might be himself._

_But he’s not alone anymore. There’s someone else in the room, a man in an unfamiliar uniform, with a shield of red, white, and blue centred around a star. He lifts the Soldier gently off the table, cradling him in his arms, impossibly soft. Sincerity and hurt obvious in his beautiful blue-green eyes, so much like—_

Steve’s.

Bucky gapes at him. 

It was Steve. The one who found him in 1943. The one who gave him the answer to saving them both. In hindsight, it seems so obvious. The only person who ever meant enough to him to imprint a memory on Bucky’s consciousness, so strong that neither time nor brainwashing could overcome it. He didn’t recognise Steve, because he _wasn’t_ the Steve Bucky knew. He was this Steve, from the future.

Which means Tony Stark was wrong. Steve _will_ travel again. He _has_ to. Otherwise this future – their future together – will never happen.

It means Bucky’s going to have to lose Steve all over again, to find him. 


	10. Chapter 10

### Spring 2013

In early March, just as the daffodils begin to bloom throughout the city, Bucky sits Steve down at the dining table in their homely kitchen, looking like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“It was you, Steve,” he says, not quite managing to meet Steve’s eyes. “You’re the one who told me.”

Something electric runs through Steve, half-horror, half-anticipation. Bucky fidgets with the tablecloth like he knows he’s just dropped a bombshell between them.

“That’s impossible,” Steve says in disbelief, leaning across the table to take Bucky’s hand. “Tony fixed that. I don’t travel anymore. I _can’t_.”

Bucky just shakes his head though, gentle but firm in his disagreement. “You can. You _have_ to. There’s no other explanation.”

“But… there has to be,” Steve insists, grasping at straws. Because what Bucky’s asking is impossible. Like finding El Dorado, or the lost city of Atlantis. And if either of those existed, Steve’s pretty sure SHIELD would know about them by now.

So the idea that he might somehow be able to travel again, when he’s felt no connection to anything but the present ever since he woke up… Steve can’t help but feel like Bucky’s barking up the wrong tree entirely. “How would I even travel with all my clothes on?” he presses. “You _know_ that’s not how it worked.”

A few motes of dust float by, drifting on a shaft of amber sunlight, and Bucky throws his hands up in the air. “I don’t know Steve! I’m just telling you what I’ve seen. You were the one who was always saying we couldn’t change things from the past. Well, this is _my_ past. Maybe Tony’s fix isn’t as infallible as we thought. Maybe you get the ability back somehow. Maybe— God, I don’t know— Maybe it was never really broken in the first place. It was just like everything else the serum did to you, a misfire up until now.”

His words hang heavy in the air, and Steve’s brain latches onto just one idea.

_What if it wasn’t really broken?_

He leans back, heart beating faster in his chest. “So you’re suggesting… maybe I can control it now? That’s why I haven’t travelled since I woke up?”

Bucky looks down and away from Steve, then back again, mouth tightening. “Maybe.”

It’s a novel idea. But, surely then, Steve would have felt _something_? The slightest hint that any other iteration of reality exists out there, for either him or Bucky. “Buck, I think I would know...” he says, hating himself for doubting. But it just seems like the most logical conclusion.

Bucky looks defiant though, an intensity in his eyes that Steve’s not entirely sure what to do with. “Would you though?” he insists. “Have you _tried_?”

A nervous energy flutters to life in Steve’s chest. “Well no, but—”

Bucky rises from his chair, skirting the edge of the table to take Steve’s face in his hands. “Maybe you _should_.”

He looks adamant, and Steve fights against his misgivings. Even if Bucky is right, and travelling is something he can still do, it doesn’t feel like it’s a power they should be messing with. He got lucky once, and it brought him here – why chance that again?

He opens his arms, and Bucky steps into the newly created space, thumbs still brushing warmly across Steve’s cheeks. The set of his jaw is determined, but there’s something else in his eyes, laid bare for Steve to see, raw and vulnerable. “Please Steve… I know I’m right. You can do this. Trust me.”

It’s not like Steve’s ever really been able to refuse Bucky. Or wanted to, especially not when he looks like this. He wraps his arms around him, cheek resting over Bucky’s chest, listening to the steady tattoo of his heartbeat beneath his ribs, sure and true. “I do, Buck. I do trust you.”

In the end, there’s only so much putting it off they can do. Once the idea has been planted, it quickly begins to take root, colouring their every interaction with a sense of impending doom. Steve gets sick of Bucky looking at him like he’s about to up and disappear for good at any moment. And at heart, both of them know it’s not something they can postpone forever.

So late one Saturday afternoon, the day before Bucky’s 96th birthday, they agree to try it.

“I just want to know, Steve,” Bucky says when Steve asks if he’s really sure, if it can’t maybe wait, just one more day. “I can’t keep living like this… like I’m waiting for the sky to fall down on me.”

Steve pulls him into a tight hug, feeling Bucky’s wistful sigh against his shoulder. He understands, even if he wouldn’t choose this way himself.

There’s something about it that feels beyond ridiculous though, being dressed in his entire Captain America get-up in their living room. Like a prom date with destiny, he jokes to Bucky.

“Damn it, Steve! At least try to take this seriously,” Bucky grumbles, as Steve is attacked by another fit of the giggles.

“Sorry,” Steve says, trying to hold back the rest of his laughter. He knows this is meant to be serious. But Bucky being such a stick in the mud about it contrasts amusingly with the absurd quality to the whole venture. The idea that Steve might just disappear from the middle of their living room, deliver a life-changing message nearly 70 years ago, then pop right back in. Like he ducked out to buy milk.

Bucky scowls.

“All right, all right, I’m taking it seriously,” Steve says, holding up his hands, placating, but still not entirely able to wipe the smile from his face. The truth is, Steve _wants_ to believe Bucky’s right, but he’s just not sure he really _can_. It seems too implausible.

Bucky grabs his hands tight, holding them still. “No you’re not, punk. Now, _concentrate_.”

Steve sighs, closing his eyes again. “Okay. What did you say it looked like? A dark room with a big table…”

They agreed this was the best way to try it, with Bucky describing what he remembers from that time, so if there is anything out there, Steve has a better chance of finding it.

Bucky’s fingers tighten around Steve’s hands. “It was in Austria. High up in the Alps. The room smelt like antiseptic and mildew, and it had this ice-cold draft that used to sweep in through the cracks in the window at night, so sharp it’d cut right through a man. I got taken there after I got sick…”

Steve hasn’t got the slightest clue what he’s even looking for. It’s not like there’s a handy training manual for time travel. Maybe he could write one if this works, he thinks wryly. In the meantime, the best he can do is try to picture the place and time Bucky’s describing, searching for anything he might be able to connect with.

Problem is, Steve never really gave the whole process much thought when it was happening all the time. It was unconscious and involuntarily, in much the same way as an epileptic seizure is. What he does remember is the strange feeling of weightlessness before it happened. The sensation of reaching out and touching the infinite space of the universe, and the way he could sometimes sense, just a little, where he was going. Less the place, than the feelings involved – either his own or Bucky’s.

“What were you feeling?” he asks, hoping it might help.

Bucky pauses, and Steve feels him shift a little on his feet. He imagines Bucky’s probably frowning, forehead lined with concentration like it gets whenever he thinks too hard. It can’t be easy for him, recalling one of the worst moments of his life.

“I was scared,” Bucky says. “I was losing myself… losing _you_ …” His voice breaks a little.

Something familiar but tenuous stirs at the edge of Steve’s consciousness. _That’s it…_ “Keep going, Buck,” he says.

Bucky takes a ragged breath. “What they were doing to me, it was making me forget... So I made myself a promise, that when I got out of there, I was going to tell you the truth. Even if you hated me for it. It was what kept me going…”

The feeling is growing stronger now, but it’s still hard to pin down. Like an echo chamber of a hundred whispers, where Steve has to pick the single voice that belongs to Bucky, hold onto its thread, and follow it to the very end. Resist the pull of old familiar temptations, their paths worn from use…

“I imagined what you’d say when I told you,” Bucky continues, his voice heavy with feeling. “Imagined the way you’d smile, and tell me you felt the same. The way it would feel to take you in my arms and kiss you for the first time… I knew it was never gonna happen. Knew I was done for. But I couldn’t let it go… Let _you_ go.”

Bucky squeezes his hands again, and it’s then Steve feels it – the _other_ Bucky’s fear, his regret, his sorrow…

A spark of excitement flickers to life within him. Bucky was right, the goddamn jerk. There _is_ another version of him out there, in 1943, calling to Steve, clear as a lighthouse on a stormy night.

Steve’s got a footing here, _and there._

His eyes fly open. “I’ve got it.”

Bucky’s mouth turns up, rueful and proud, eyes glistening in the light from the window. “See? I told ya, punk…”

“But…” Steve frowns, suddenly aware of the gaping flaw in their plan. “How do I get back? If I don’t have you to guide me like this?”

Bucky’s smile turns thin around the edges, like he guessed as much all along. He leans in to press his forehead against Steve’s, his voice is barely louder than a whisper. “I don’t know.”

Enthusiasm turns to lead in Steve’s veins. “What if I can’t do it? What if I don’t come back?”

They did talk about the possibility. But Steve, like the optimistic, naïve idiot he is, just assumed if he could control the process to get there, he’d be able to control it home. It’s only now, as he feels himself torn between two separate times, and strung out thin across all the places in between, that he realises it might not be that simple.

Bucky kisses him fiercely, every bit as desperate and bruising as his hold on Steve’s body. “Then… I’m glad we had this much.”

“Buck, no…” Steve gasps. He wants to refuse. Stay put in the time they share, _now_ . But he knows in his heart he can’t. There’s another Bucky out there who needs him, and if Steve doesn’t go to him, then this Bucky – _his_ Bucky – won’t exist.

And that’s something Steve can’t let happen. More than anything else, all he’s ever wanted is for Bucky to be happy, with or without him.

“I love you, Steve,” Bucky says, expression sombre.

“I love you too,” Steve says, pulling Bucky into the tightest hug he can manage, and feeling it returned with just as much strength. “And I’ll find a way back, I promise. Until the end of the line, remember? And this isn’t it. You hear me? I’ve got a very important birthday party to attend tomorrow…”

Bucky pulls away, cheeks wet with tears. He’s not the only one, Steve realises.

Of the two of them, Bucky manages one last brilliant smile, like the world is going to pieces around him, but he knows Steve’s only talking big to save both their feelings. “’Course you do, pal.”

Steve takes a step back, swallowing around the lump in his throat. One last longing look at Bucky, then he closes his eyes, giving in to the pull of the other time… the other Bucky…

Around him, the 21st century slips away.

Travelling isn’t the same as it was before.

It’s both better and worse. Better because Steve can exert control over it, tenuous though it is. Worse because he _has_ to, chasing a thread that’s slipping through his fingers just as fast as he can grab hold of it, through a void so overwhelmingly vast it feels like if he takes one wrong step, he might never come out again. At least when he travelled before, he knew he’d end up in one time or another. Now, it’s like he’s completely untethered. Free to go where he will, but at the risk of losing everything.

So it’s a blessed relief when he lands on his feet in a room exactly like the one Bucky described, fully clothed for a change. Right beside the table the Bucky of the past is strapped to, lips moving to the sound of his own jumbled whispers.

“James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038.”

It’s enough to make Steve’s blood boil, seeing him like this. Every bit as awful as Bucky described it. He’s still so painfully young and innocent of the future that lies ahead for him.

This is the turning point where it all changes, for both of them. Where Steve loses Bucky and travels for the first time, setting in motion everything yet to come.

Part of Steve wants to rip the shackles right off Bucky’s wrists and carry him out of this godforsaken hellhole. To beat down anyone and anything standing in his way, including the predetermined future that awaits them both. He wonders if now, maybe, he could even do it. But… this Bucky already has his Steve, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

And Steve’s Bucky – just as beautifully bent and broken as Steve is – is waiting, back in the future, for _his_ Steve to come home.

Gently, Steve lifts past-Bucky off the table, smoothing the dirty hair off his forehead, and taking a deep breath. Where to begin… “Hey Buck…” Steve says, hesitant as he searches for the right words. “I know you’re in there somewhere. And I know this won’t make any sense to you for a long time yet.” Haunting blue eyes turn to Steve’s, blank in a way that makes him feel nauseous. “But I need you to listen to me. 200 Park Avenue, New York. Can you remember that for me? I need you to remember. It’s going to be important one day…”

There’s no sign Bucky’s even heard him, let alone understood. “200 Park Avenue,” Steve repeats again, just to be sure. “You’d better remember that, jerk. Also… I’m sorry. That I can’t change this for you. I won’t lie, the next few decades, they’re not gonna be easy. But you’ll have someone to help you. It’ll be worth it. Just…” Steve smiles at the irony. “Don’t shoot the little guy when he shows up, okay? You two need each other.”

Bucky blinks like he’s heard precisely nothing, and gently, Steve lays him back down on the table. It breaks his heart, having to leave him here like this. Knowing what’s coming. But there’s nothing more he can do either. Steve just hopes he’s not promising anything in vain.

It’s time for him to go home.

If he still can.

Steve closes his eyes, searching for the feeling he drew on before. The multitude of connections that exist between himself and Bucky, in every time from the very first day they first met, until the far-distant future. The entire universe of their lives, laid bare at Steve’s feet. A million tangled strings to unravel, and any number of possibilities that could be the answer. It might as well be impossible, finding his way back to the one he wants. 

But he has to. He and Bucky have been through too much for Steve to let him down now…

He frowns in concentration, reaching out with what’s in his heart. Love and loss. Absence – what’s _not_ there, rather than what is. The only roadmap he has. It would be so easy to get lost in it all. To end up in the wrong place, or no place at all. Stuck, with no way back.

_Focus, Steve…_

He thinks of everything he loves about Bucky. His strength and determination, and the way he works so hard to overcome the hand life dealt him. How, despite it, he still manages not to take life too seriously, joking around with Steve, same as he did before the war. The beautiful way his face lights up when he smiles and the cheerful crinkles around his eyes, one of the few gifts time ever gave him. The way he’s always there for Steve, no matter what...

And Steve’s Bucky would be looking for him too. Calling him home. 

_That’s it._

Steve smiles. It seems so obvious now he’s found it. Like a lit highway, glittering in the darkness. Like long lazy mornings in bed, waking to the smell of coffee and pancakes, or long breathless nights lost in each other. As though the missing part of his soul is still exactly where it’s always been, the constant at the centre of his universe. 

He reaches out for Bucky, letting himself be guided home. 

The look on Bucky’s face when Steve materialises back in their living room is priceless. “Steve,” he gasps, wide-eyed and breathless, like hadn’t even dared hope for as much.

Steve crosses the room, pulling Bucky into his arms and holding him like he’s never going to let go. Because he isn’t. Not ever again. Bucky leans into him, tears bright in his eyes, and Steve runs his hands over Bucky’s body, mapping out every last inch of him – proof they’re really here, together.

“You came back,” Bucky says against his shoulder, incredulous.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes. “And I’m never leaving you again. I promise.”

Bucky smiles at that, dragging Steve in and kissing him, fierce and possessive. His fingers dig into Steve’s skin, hard enough to leave marks, and Steve gives himself over to it, utterly and completely. 

It’s been a long and twisted road, getting here. But finally, the future is their own to make.

**Author's Note:**

> “So…” Bucky says the next morning, with a wicked smile. “Do you think we should tell Tony he failed?”
> 
> Steve makes a face, chuckling at the idea. “No, I think we absolutely should not tell Tony. He’d never let me out of his lab again…”
> 
> * * *
> 
> And we're done! Happy New Year to you all and thanks so much for reading. I always love hearing your thoughts, questions, and comments, so feel free to get in touch, especially if I've confused the hell out of you!
> 
> You'll also find me on tumblr as [AntipodeanPineappleLump](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/antipodeanpineapplelump/).


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